Wong Speaks About Correlation Between Medicine, Art, Music

COOPERSTOWN—The Second Annual David S. Svahn Humanities in Medicine Memorial Lecture was held on Friday, May 16 at the Clark Auditorium at Bassett Medical Center. This year’s guest lecturer, Dr. Lisa Wong, delivered an address titled “Embracing the Art of Medicine in Uncertain Times” and played music on her viola.

In-person attendance at the auditorium was strong, ranging in age and experience level from students and residents to seasoned clinicians and department heads. Others joined virtually.

According to a press release, Dr. Wong is associate co-director and co-founder of the Arts and Humanities Initiative and an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School. She is also a practicing pediatrician at Milton Pediatric Associates and past president and current member of the Longwood Symphony Orchestra, an orchestra composed of members of Boston’s medical community.

During her lecture, Dr. Wong spoke about her personal journey in medicine, music and community service, from childhood to the present. Music and the arts in general, she says, can bring people together and bolster an individual’s development.

“A major challenge that we’re having in our communities, starting before the COVID-19 pandemic and then accelerated and amplified during the pandemic, was an increase in loneliness, anxiety, and isolation, not only of the individual patient but also of the medical student, resident, our neighbors, and our friends. With that came a decrease in resilience, a decrease in the use of our manual dexterity, and a decrease in curiosity and creativity. I argue that with the arts we can help address those changes,” said Dr. Wong. “Music can heal the patient, heal the community, and heal the healer,” she continued.

Dr. Wong continued her address by speaking about neuroscience and the impact music has on the brain, looking through history at doctors and scientists who valued or performed music, like Dr. Rene Laennec, Dr. Virginia Apgar, and Dr. Theodor Billroth, and reflected on recent initiatives she’s been involved with, including the Ukraine Invisible Wounds of War Project and the Boston Hope Music Project, one of the wellness programs offered to patients at Boston Hope Medical Center, a field hospital in Boston established to care for patients recovering from COVID-19.

Dr. Wong’s full address can be viewed on the Bassett Healthcare Network YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_ifx5Lri8o.

The day before the lecture, the importance of the arts was put into practice at Fenimore Art Museum. Dr. Wong led Bassett residents in a workshop comprised of three exercises and centered on the museum’s exhibits, officials said.

The first exercise focused on visual thinking. Residents analyzed works of art and offered their opinions on what the artist was trying to say, what emotions the work evoked, and what other interpretations could be make. The second was back-to-back drawing. Participants were paired up and tasked with describing a work of art to their partner, who was standing behind them and had never seen the original art. The third and final exercise was centered on the viewer’s personal response to art. Residents were given prompts, asking them to find art that spoke to a variety of themes. They then explained their personal reasons for their selections to the group.

During the workshop, residents expressed their appreciation for this opportunity to take a step back from the high-demands of the hospital and shared how valuable the communication, empathy and visualization skills strengthened through art are in their medical work.

The Svahn lecture series is presented as a tribute to Dr. David S. Svahn, a revered figure in the Cooperstown medical community who dedicated his life to instilling a profound sense of compassion and human connection in generations of physicians. He devoted the entirety of his 30-year career in medicine to Bassett Medical Center. It is made possible through an endowment from Dr. Jennifer Svahn, a practicing surgeon and the daughter of Dr. David Svahn, and her husband, Dr. Jeffrey Nicastro.