Name: Steven Standiford, MD, FACS.

Position: Chief of Surgery and Chief of Staff, Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Philadelphia.

Why I became a doctor: I'd planned it since I was five or six. As I grew up, it just became more and more interesting, from when I was a volunteer in the hospital when I was in high school, to the anatomy labs in college biology, to interacting with patients when a medical student. Although there were no physicians in my family, it always seemed I was going to be a doctor. Besides, my other choice was being an on-the-road musician, which doesn't have the job security. I'm happier having my music as my release.

How I got to be an accomplished ragtime pianist: I was the typical classically-trained pianist until age 15, when my father brought home a ragtime phonograph record. I scoured the music stores for the sheet music, and started learning it - which proved a good move when The Sting popularized Scott Joplin's music a year later. When I lived in Missouri, where ragtime began, there was an active ragtime community, and I got swallowed up in it. With lots of practice, and my ragtime friends as a supportive audience, I began to get invitations to play at events across the country.

The connection between the two is: Ragtime and surgery have both structure and a place for developing a new or better way to do things. And the interaction between audience and performer - or physician and patient - is all about understanding who you are talking with and where they are in their journey. I present differently to an audience of ragtime experts than to a community group just learning that the music exists - just as I do when talking with a brand-new patient as opposed to a long-standing, familiar patient.

Many people might think that cancer medicine would be a gloomy business, but I would tell them that: My patients, with their strength, joy of life, and dignity when faced with a challenging situation, give me the privilege to share their journey. Even when the result is sad, we share happiness and fun along the way that it is never gloomy. And, when our patients are cured, we celebrate like crazy!

My single favorite piece to play is: "The Georgia Grind," written by Ford T. Dabney in 1915. It is a tune that not many folks play, that has become my signature piece among the ragtimers, and the first one I played in concert at the Scott Joplin International Ragtime Festival in Sedalia, Missouri.

I'll know I'm doing my job well if, in five years: I'm playing piano at our annual Celebrate Life celebration for some of my patients. Celebrate Life is a day when our whole hospital honors our patients who've reached their five year milestone as a cancer survivor at Cancer Treatment Centers of America. We throw a big party for their five-year anniversary. When I get to play for them, I get the best of both worlds that day!