Just what the doctor ordered: Mackenzie Health physician discovers music is medicine for the soul

(As seen in yorkregion.com on Jan 17, 2023 by Kim Zarzour)

For a place that's bustling with people, hospitals in a pandemic can feel lonely — even for the physicians who work there.

During “normal” times, there are supports in place to help busy doctors get through the day, says Dr. Sherryn Rambihar, cardiologist at Mackenzie Health.

“We’d talk to our colleagues, to the nurses, to volunteers,” she explains.

But during the height of the pandemic, when COVID cases surged and hospitals were swamped, "we were hidden behind face shields, goggles, isolation wards and masks. We’d come home and shower and couldn’t touch our kids who’d been home-schooling all day, and it was all so much stress.”

Rambihar felt all that and more as she cared for patients with heart problems who were terrified of catching the dangerous coronavirus.

It took its toll, seeing the suffering day after day, so when she heard about a choir for female doctors, started by Toronto palliative care doctor Susan Thouin, she jumped at the chance.

Voices Rock Medicine launched just before the pandemic and had switched to online, but Rambihar didn’t mind. It was just the medicine she was hoping for.

It felt restorative and healing, she says, "just to see the faces of 60 other women who’d had some version of that day you just had. You didn’t have to talk about it or explain yourselves — they just got it."

These physician/singers came from all walks of life — some had never sung before — but they knew what research shows: biologically, when you sing together, your heartbeat synchronizes.

They sang and forgot about the weight of the world, their responsibilities, the unknowns of a rapidly spreading virus. Sometimes, they didn't sing at all but sat in silence, listened to the piano accompanist and wept.

“It was a really dark time … but community was there. It was a place of support. We found strength and resilience, to inspire the best version of ourselves to go back out there to give it another day.”

There was another benefit. Rambihar's kids could hear her on her computer, tucked away in the basement exercise room, singing just for the pleasure of it.

“Women take care of others, but for your families to see you taking time for yourself is so important.”

When the group gathered to sing in-person for the first time, it was an emotional moment.

They recorded for Canada's Got Talent in the community garden at North York General Hospital — socially distanced, but the sun was shining and it felt amazing.

“Nobody, no one, wanted to leave.”

The pandemic isn’t over, and challenges remain for those in health care, but the female singing doctors continue to grow in strength. The program has expanded to include multiple days a week and other cities across Canada.

There's a lesson here for all of us, Rambihar says.

“If nothing else, the pandemic has given us a chance to put things in perspective,” she says.

When a patient has a major medical event, like a heart attack, she counsels them to use it as an opportunity to change for the better. The pandemic can do the same.

“Yes, we have to grieve and mourn the Christmases lost, Thanksgivings lost, etc. But these touchstones are periods where we can look around, do a 360 and say, ‘where am I at now? How did I get here? Am I happy with what I'm doing? What changes can I make to be positive going forward?”

Maybe a choir is not for everybody. Maybe it's another new activity like drama, or picking up an instrument or volunteering in the community.

“All of those are things can help people feel more connected as we come out of a time that was extremely disconnected. These are ways that we can bring back that social fabric that we are so lacking right now,” she says.

“We just we have to figure out how to live again, together.”