A volunteer group makes music part of patient care

The singer-songwriter Matt Duke stood at the end of Sandra Morello's bed in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, strumming his acoustic guitar and belting out one of his own tunes, "Needle and Thread." Her head wrapped in a purple bandanna, Morello nodded along. In her arm was an IV delivering an immunosuppressant drug.

"To sing your blues away," he serenaded the 43-year-old cancer patient, "and hope for better days."

Morello smiled and clapped. "It definitely makes you feel good," she said. "Music is soothing and helps you get through your problems."

On Rhoads 7, a floor in the oncology department, and 13 other wards at the hospital, patients are regaled with bedside concerts Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Morello was one of 17 patients - 29 people counting family members and staff - whom Duke entertained that particular night.

The program is run by Musicians on Call, a national group whose Philadelphia branch is managed by WXPN-FM, the university's public radio station. A volunteer group of 156 musicians and 62 guides makes bedside visits not only at the Penn hospital, but also at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, the Philadelphia VA Medical Center, Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center in Camden, and Wilmington Hospital.

Lynn Schuchter, hematology oncology chief at the Penn hospital, said she has found the visits soothing, uplifting, and joyful. Her patients are sick with cancer, have lost their hair, have undergone potentially disfiguring surgeries, and are often stuck in bed in a hospital gown. The music is "humanizing" and "such a reprieve."

"When I see it happening, I get tearful," she said. "I can't thank them enough."

Established in New York in 1999, Musicians on Call expanded to Philadelphia in 2004. Since then, the group has given more than 70,000 bedside performances in this area.

For Duke, performing with Musicians on Call has been "eye-opening" and "perspective-changing." He has volunteered since 2009, usually at Jefferson, and tries to go at least quarterly.

His rounds typically last several hours. While he might meet a patient for only a few minutes, there is a "palpable" energy in the room, he said. Music is a universal language and he can bond with patients without saying much at all, he added.

Music, he said, "endears you to one another."

Volunteer guide Karen Kelly-Nickens, who has accompanied musicians on their visits for two years, said she sees music as part of holistic care, a "medicine for the soul." Each concert is a "private, intimate experience."

The program is good for hospital staff as well, she said. "They need music, too."

WXPN marketing director Kim Winnick and host Helen Leicht observed the program in New York before the station started it here. They shadowed a musician as he played for a young teen with a head injury. Though he lay stock-still, the electronic monitors began to move.

"After you see something like that happen," Leicht said, "you become a true believer."

Two years later, her mother was found to have lung cancer. Jazz vocalist Melody Gardot crooned "Over the Rainbow" at her bed.

"There was a sense of peace while I was watching her listen to this song," Leicht said, "because she couldn't go out to shows anymore, she couldn't do anything."

Nearly three years after the program's launch in Philadelphia, Winnick's brother Keith, then 38, was found to have stage-four lymphoma. For most of his remaining five months, he was on Rhoads 7, and the musical interludes became a big part of his life.

The week before he died, Keith Winnick, a huge music fan, was barely conscious and unable to acknowledge anyone. His hospital room was filled with family when classical violinist Michelle Bishop paid a visit. She stood outside the door and played.

"He started to open his eyes, and he started moving his hands, and it was clear that the music was reaching him," Kim Winnick said. "It was beautiful."

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@LauraEWeiss16