Listen to a New Podcast interview (July 19, 2017) with Dr. Ron Hirschberg and Chuck Clough on Above the Basement!
Welcome to my website!
I am a pediatrician who incorporates music into my daily life and into the daily care of patients. Access to the arts is critical to the development of the whole child, and I encourage music education for all children. My life’s goal is to promote the re-integration of the creative arts into all aspects of medicine: through curriculum change in medical schools, and increased use and awareness of the arts in healthcare settings and hospitals on the regional, national and international level.
After graduating from Harvard, NYU Medical School and pediatric residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, I joined Milton Pediatric Associates in 1986. Founded in 1967, Milton Pediatric Associates is a single-specialty practice with offices in Boston and Braintree that cares for families from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Over 40 years, the practice has grown to 12 doctors, 40 nurses and staff, and a panel of over 25,000 patients. Besides caring for children from birth to age 22, our practice is a teaching center for Harvard Medical School students and MGH residents. As member of the Radcliffe Mentor Program for 18 years, I also mentor Harvard women who are pursuing their premedical studies at Harvard while continuing their musical or visual arts. They often shadow me in the office and attend my concerts.
Beyond pediatrics, the focus of my career has been on the intersection between arts and sciences. In 2012 I stepped down after twenty years as President of Longwood Symphony Orchestra, a 90-member ensemble composed primarily of faculty, students and staff from the healthcare professions. The orchestra brings Boston’s community of caregivers together in a unique way: LSO’s musicians represent three medical schools and eighteen hospitals. Every LSO concert is a partnership with a health-related nonprofit organization and every chamber music performance in the community demonstrates the healing power of music to patient, caregiver and medical musician. LSO has collaborated with over 40 locally-based nonprofit organizations to raise community awareness, increase capacity and promote organizational self-sufficiency. The orchestra is deeply inspired by the work of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Albert Schweitzer and is committed to educating the next generation in practicing the healing arts of music and medicine, encouraging our students to submit written reflections after musical caregiving in hospices and rehabilitation centers and asking older members to mentor younger medical musicians through modeling and discussions about work-life balance.
Since 2012, I have been increasingly engaged in the work of the Arts and Medicine. While Music and Medicine remain my primary focus, I am interested in the relationship between medicine and other art forms. Through the newly created Arts and Humanities Initiative at Harvard Medical School and the Boston Arts Consortium for Health, I have the opportunity to meet and learn from other colleagues engaged in the arts and healing, whose art forms may be narrative writing, poetry, visual arts, theater or dance.
After graduating from Harvard, NYU Medical School and pediatric residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, I joined Milton Pediatric Associates in 1986. Founded in 1967, Milton Pediatric Associates is a single-specialty practice with offices in Boston and Braintree that cares for families from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Over 40 years, the practice has grown to 12 doctors, 40 nurses and staff, and a panel of over 25,000 patients. Besides caring for children from birth to age 22, our practice is a teaching center for Harvard Medical School students and MGH residents. As member of the Radcliffe Mentor Program for 18 years, I also mentor Harvard women who are pursuing their premedical studies at Harvard while continuing their musical or visual arts. They often shadow me in the office and attend my concerts.
Beyond pediatrics, the focus of my career has been on the intersection between arts and sciences. In 2012 I stepped down after twenty years as President of Longwood Symphony Orchestra, a 90-member ensemble composed primarily of faculty, students and staff from the healthcare professions. The orchestra brings Boston’s community of caregivers together in a unique way: LSO’s musicians represent three medical schools and eighteen hospitals. Every LSO concert is a partnership with a health-related nonprofit organization and every chamber music performance in the community demonstrates the healing power of music to patient, caregiver and medical musician. LSO has collaborated with over 40 locally-based nonprofit organizations to raise community awareness, increase capacity and promote organizational self-sufficiency. The orchestra is deeply inspired by the work of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Albert Schweitzer and is committed to educating the next generation in practicing the healing arts of music and medicine, encouraging our students to submit written reflections after musical caregiving in hospices and rehabilitation centers and asking older members to mentor younger medical musicians through modeling and discussions about work-life balance.
Since 2012, I have been increasingly engaged in the work of the Arts and Medicine. While Music and Medicine remain my primary focus, I am interested in the relationship between medicine and other art forms. Through the newly created Arts and Humanities Initiative at Harvard Medical School and the Boston Arts Consortium for Health, I have the opportunity to meet and learn from other colleagues engaged in the arts and healing, whose art forms may be narrative writing, poetry, visual arts, theater or dance.
