The Fix

We have all heard of “the healing power of music,” but surgeon-in-training, Dr. Claudius Conrad, a resident at Harvard Medical School, is trying to prove through empirical scientific study, that music is indeed capable of making us more whole.

Last December Conrad published, in the journal Critical Care Medicine, an article that has become somewhat controversial. The article claims that certain music, when played during treatment sessions of critically ill patients, reduces the need for sedatives. The music itself–slower sections of Mozart piano sonatas as one example–reduced blood pressure and heart rate, easing the stress that a traumatized body’s systems would normally impinge upon itself in response to the treatment methods.

What is controversial is that it appears that the bodies’ production rates of growth hormones, such as epinephrine (adrenalin) and IL-6 (known to stimulate immune response to trauma among other things), seem to increase in response to the music as compared to the control group. This would intuitively lead an observer to anticipate elevated heart rates and blood pressure. However, paradoxically, the increased growth hormones in Conrad’s case study subjects indicate that these hormones, under these conditions, instead reduce the stress-related symptoms of blood pressure and elevated heart rate.

According to an article in the New York Times, not everyone in the medical community is in accord with Conrad’s conclusions, but admit that they pose questions intriguing enough to bear further investigation.

Conrad, incidentally, is not only a medical doctor but holds a doctoral degree in the philosophy of music as well as another PhD in stem cell biology.

Conrad is a life-long pianist who says his surgical skills are enhanced because of it; he believes there is a direct correlation between his physical dexterity and manual sensitivity as a surgeon and his piano playing. He says his surgical skills lose something if he isn’t playing piano regularly.

Conrad shows up to surgery with his iPod. During the delicate and crucial parts of any procedure he listens to Mozart and Liszt and the like, but when it comes time to close up he cranks up MC Solaar and Armin Van Buren.

photo via New York Times