Tuesday, May 20, 2008

A Doctor After My Own Heart

This is my kind of guy.
The talented 30-year old surgeon who also holds a doctorate in Music and is an accomplished pianist, does everything to music. I fully understand why. I cannot perform good work sans music. It needs to accompany all I do and grabbing the iPod is the first thing I do when about to leave the house as I face the day. Music is not a luxury, it's a necessity.
Breakfast I can skip, lunch too, but my iPod, no. If I do, I have been known to change my route and go in search of it till I have it on my person again.
Good work or good anything for that matter, I have been conditioned to think and sense, can only happen in the company of sound.
Having stated that, the NY Times article I just read this morning made me nod after every paragraph. It is about a German surgeon, Claudius Conrad, who also does research on the soothing effects of music on patients. A most fascinating read and a true testament to multidisciplinarity. Here are some snippets,
"When Dr. Conrad operates, he brings an iPod stocked not just with Mozart, Liszt and Scarlatti but also with gigabytes of European techno-rap bands his colleagues have never heard of (and cannot understand), including Klee, M.C. Solaar and Armin van Buuren.

Asked if he could actually work with that kind of music, he replied, slightly sheepishly: “Well, that’s not the music you want when you’re in the middle of a delicate procedure. But once you’re through that part and you’re closing up” — he shrugged — “it’s a good time to liven things up.”
Read the full exciting feature here.
graph per ny times

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Overachiever with a knack for music. What's not to like, really.
Don't know if I'd want him performing surgery on me while listening to Mozart's Requiem, though....

Anonymous said...

Quite a Kerl!