Musical Intuition

The other day one of my colleagues said to me "It is so weird to see you as a nurse! I'm just curious, do you still use music with your patients?"

My answer was: YES. All the time. I have noticed all throughout school that even though I have learned many new nursing skills, my strength as a nurse comes from my ability to interact with people, which was developed through my work as a music therapist. And despite all that I have learned in nursing school, my brain still thinks like a music therapist. Not a musician. Not a therapist. A music therapist.

The minute a baby starts crying, my instinct immediately is to start singing to them to try to comfort them. Sometimes I don't even realize I am doing it. I had a baby a few weeks ago whose parents had left a Broadway hits CD at his bedside. I was going through my assessment, checking pulses, giving meds, changing his diaper, and apparently singing and humming along the entire time to Oliver! and West Side Story. Later my preceptor said to me "It was so cool how you were singing to the baby. He totally loved it!" I was shocked- I had no idea I was even doing it.

But I will often find myself sitting in the dark in the middle of the night, holding or comforting a crying baby, and the first thing I will try is singing to them. Some nurses immediately reach for the pacifier- or maybe even the morphine!- or try bundling, sweet ease, suctioning, decreased stimulation, but the first thing that I try is singing. And I have to say, it works every time.

I hope that I never stop thinking like a music therapist.