Fresh Minds, Fresh Ideas
By: Bobbie Collins, HMS News
Updated: March 22, 2021
“The concert was the last ‘family outing’ we had together … and will forever be a fond memory of his last days with us.”
The quote, from an individual whose father died in February, powerfully demonstrates the impact of Harvard Medical School student Grant Riew’s research project, “Harnessing the therapeutic aspects of music to treat loneliness with virtual bedside concerts.”
The project has been pairing musicians with hospitals and other health care facilities for virtual bedside concerts during the pandemic to help relieve patients’ feelings of isolation and distress.
Mass General’s ‘Virtual Bedside Concerts’ bring healing power of music to isolated patients
By: Christine McCarthy, Boston 25 News
Updated: December 2, 2020 - 11:52 PM
BOSTON — Musicians are bringing comfort to patients through a concert program at Massachusetts General Hospital aimed at relieving isolation and anxiety caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Virtual Bedside Concerts program began seventh months ago, connecting musicians with patients for private concerts through Zoom.
Dr. Kathy May Tran, who leads the Happiness Committee at MGH, helps run the program. Tran says the concerts provide a kind of therapy medicine cannot, at a time when family members often cannot visit and doctors and nurses have their faces covered by layers of protective gear.