Perfect Match
According to Dr. Chen, medicine and music are complementary.
“Medicine and music can be inexorably connected in more ways than one,” he says. “Learning music early on certainly set a tone and established a certain discipline that I rely on every day as a physician.
“Even the process of how you learn music—the repetition, the constant trying to obtain perfection—you can also find in medicine.”
He adds that music and medicine possess similar qualities in terms of their duality. They both offer structure and opportunities for creative expression. Doctors keep track of all the minutia to form a big picture. So do musicians, whose musical notes are combined into a song or symphony. To be a really good doctor or musician, he says, people need to excel at both the creative and technical aspects.
Dr. Chen still practices the violin, roughly an hour each day. Among his favorite pieces are those composed during the romantic period of classical music—generally between the 18th and early 19th centuries.
“You can play musical notes [that are] technically precise, but unless you add a certain creativity to make the music beautiful, then the music doesn’t carry any meaning,” he says.
His music is appreciated by many of his peers when he performs at staff meetings or concerts as part of the hospital’s orchestra. But performing has stirred up a new passion—to pursue other performance venues. He says a handful of exceptional musicians in the hospital’s orchestra are members of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Chen hopes to audition for the orchestra within the next two years, after polishing a new classical piece he is working on—Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E minor.
Until then, he’s considering playing his violin in the hospital’s lobby. Since music is medicine, performing mini concerts throughout the year may help minimize patients’ pain or ease the anxiety experienced by family members.
Not to mention that it also helps Dr. Chen maintain balance in his own life. At this point, he has no plans to sacrifice one career for the other.
“Music has been able to help me get in touch with my human side, nourish and nurture it,” Dr. Chen says. “Music, by all means, helps give equilibrium, so I can stay a complete individual. That’s how I function best, whether as a musician or physician.”
Carol Patton is a freelance writer in Las Vegas.