SCALES TO SCALPELS

Beautiful, unique, original, and refreshingly positive. SCALES TO SCALPELS is popular nonfiction with everything: heart, soul, mind, body, and spirit!

How does practicing the art of music transform the art of practicing medicine? Does music heal the doctors the way the doctors heal their patients? Dr. Wong's absorbing narrative provides is a window into the lives of medical professionals who do both, and for whom healing and music exist in radiant harmony. Her incredible story of the Longwood Symphony Orchestra that reveals the remarkable interplay between music and medicine, anyhow this neurological interplay informs the larger art of healing. TheLongwood Symphony orchestra began in 1982 with a group of talented Boston-area physicians, med students and health-care professionals and has been flourishing ever since under the leadership of violinist Dr. Lisa Wong, who became president of the LSO in 1991. The orchestra is now a proud, extraordinary group of musicians with fans around the globe. In SCALES TO SCALPELS, Dr. Wong chronicles how the musical acumen of these physicians affects the way they administer healing and, in turn, how their work affects their music. What cognitive and emotional shifts occur when a surgeon transitions from the chaos of the ER to the discipline of the orchestra rehearsal studio? What’s it like to make a house call to a poor neighborhood in the morning and then play trumpet in a jazz group that night? Does music heal the doctors the way the doctors heal their patients?