The healing hillside

Dr. Wayne London, a Harvard trained medical doctor, had visited town for his 50th high school class reunion. The next day we received a call from one of his classmates suggesting that he be invited to visit Chan Soon-Shiong/Windber Medical Center. As his classmate explained, he had some very interesting ideas about health and healing. After observing the campus on his first tour of the grounds, he suggested that the entire medical center property should appropriately be referred to as “the healing hillside.”
Several of the suggestions he made that day and over the next several years were implemented, but one of the most interesting one was that we embrace the concept of allowing patients to participate in seeking their own complementary paths to healing.
As a psychiatrist who had worked at the National Institutes of Health, he had discovered through his decades of researching ancient civilizations, religions, and healing practices that, prior to today’s modern technological advances, actions utilized for healing sickness had taken many different forms.
One easily identifiable action that was consistently employed by numerous religions and civilizations was the use of music. The vibrations emanating from music were produced from flutes, drums, harps, singing, or any number of other sound sources. Although he had no definitive information on these practices, he believed they could contribute to the healing process.
Not ironically, at that time the medical center had a live string trio, harpist, guitar player, and singer, a pianist, and recorded music throughout the facility. Prior to their surgeries, patients could decide what music they would prefer and were given personal headphones.
One day while walking through the research institute, a proteomic scientist explained that our proteins fold and move when music is played. Let me clarify that. Our genes tell the proteins what to do. Think of the genes as the officers and the proteins as the infantry. It was the proteins that could either cause the damage or contribute to rectifying the problem.
Of course, that same scientist went on to explain that no one had discovered exactly what this protein folding and bending might mean or how it might contribute to the healing process. During a discussion with the lead proteomic scientist at the University of Hawaii, without any prompting, he reiterated that same piece of information. Then a few months after that, the dean of a local prominent medical school, a violinist, also discussed this phenomenon.
Well, music was a part of the healing tradition on that healing hillside, and, although it could never be significantly quantified, the Joint Commission and the Department of Health noted that the infection rate at the medical center in Windber had dropped consistently to between 1 and 0%. This infection rate was the lowest of Windber’s 13 peer hospitals. The national average hospital infection rates were about 9%.
That wasn’t all that happened. The medical center had the lowest restraint rates, readmission rates, and lengths of stay. Was that due to the medical staff? Of course. Was it due to the housekeeping staff? You bet it was, but could the music have played any part in this? That’s for some inspired scientist to verify. It just felt so right that we introduced music to the Joyce Murtha Breast Care Center, too.
The most important thing that any of us can take from this example of the “healing hillside” is one that we’ve heard time and time again: “We don’t know what we don’t know.”
We’ve all heard about people dying from broken hearts, but we don’t know exactly how that is possible. One theory is because, in the fetus, the heart forms before the brain is complete; several physicians and scientists have observed that we truly can have heart-centered feelings. We’ve also seen physically strong people who have died prematurely from cancer or heart disease when something emotionally traumatic occurs in their life that devastates them.
And then there’s Keith Richards. We don’t know what we don’t know.
Nick Jacobs of Windber is a health-care consultant and author of two books.