Musical M.D.s
Salt and pepper. Peanut butter and jelly. Some things were just meant to go together. Four recent alumni are making a strong case for adding “music and medicine” to that list. Professor of violin Thomas Joiner couldn’t help but notice a trend when four of his students in the past ten years entered medical school upon graduation. Looking back now, the graduates reflect on their time at Furman, their decision to pursue a career in medicine and the continued presence of music in their lives.
Emily Ellis
Emily Ellis ’97 is clearly the product of a liberal arts education: she lists a violin professor, a computer science professor and a campus minister as her most influential mentors in college. Ellis majored in chemistry, played with the Furman Symphony Orchestra and served as secretary of the university’s United Methodist fellowship.
Although she knew from a young age that she wanted to be a doctor, Ellis sought a school where she could also pursue her musical interests. Furman’s liberal arts program, she says, “encouraged all students to avoid pigeonholing themselves into a narrow field of study.”
However, juggling two passions was not easy.
“Plyler Science Hall and the Daniel Music Building were in constant feud!” jokes Ellis. “I just did the best I could to balance them out.”
The balancing act continued long after graduation. Today, Ellis practices family medicine in Lancaster, South Carolina, while also performing with the Charlotte Philharmonic Orchestra. Her church life continues to mingle with her medical and musical pursuits. As a family physician in a small town, she finds many of her fellow church members in her office as patients. When one of her elderly patients, a woman suffering dementia, passed away last year, the family asked Ellis to play her violin at the funeral. She describes the experience as “a truly poignant moment.”
“I think music is a fundamental way the human soul finds expression and that humans can connect with one another despite other differences,” says Ellis. In fact, she explored the connections between music and medicine in a term paper at Furman. She discovered that music has been used as a healing therapy in many cultures, and since then, she has observed many physicians use music as a means of self-healing.
“At the end of a long day in the office, I can be thoroughly exhausted,” says Ellis. “Yet I get in the car, drive 45 minutes up the road to rehearsal and spend the next two and a half hours playing my instrument with renewed energy and complete satisfaction.”
Drew Fowler
Drew Fowler might never have become a physician if it weren’t for Ellis’s encouragement. He was content to major in music, but she convinced him to continue his chemistry studies. After four years of heavy course loads, he graduated with degrees in music and chemistry in August of 1997, turning around to start medical school the next week.
Fowler also believes his musical interests gained him acceptance at the Medical University of South Carolina despite what he describes as average MCAT scores. He tells the story of how the biochemist who interviewed him insisted on playing a few piano tunes together. Fowler says, “I am convinced this is how I got into med school.”
Now an interventional cardiology fellow, Fowler continues to play his violin whenever he has the opportunity — for his church in downtown Charleston, for friends’ weddings and for a strings benefit in his hometown of Florence. He sees a basic similarity between music and science: “For one, science and music both involve math. Understanding and feeling, or processing, rhythm is most important in music and—I think—science as well. In our physical chemistry class, we learned how atoms and electrons move in waves and rhythmic oscillations. Derivatives and decay occur in both disciplines.”
Fowler concludes, “Being a musician has ingrained in me how to listen carefully and respond appropriately. This is crucial to your interaction as a physician with your patients.”
Stefanie Adair
Stefanie (Putnam) Adair ’02 has never been one to limit her options. After double-majoring in biology and music at Furman, Adair earned her M.D. degree from the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University and is now completing a dual residency in Internal Medicine-Pediatrics with the Greenville, South Carolina, Hospital System.
Professor Joiner introduced Adair to Furman when the two met at the Brevard Music Center in western North Carolina. Adair knew that she wanted to complete two majors, so she was looking for a school that would support her varied interests.
At Furman, she found that. “The teachers in both the music and science departments were quite encouraging, trying to arrange classes so that rehearsals and science labs wouldn’t conflict.”
In the process of applying to medical school, Adair notes, “Each discipline brings something different to the table. Med schools know the commitment required to be a music major, and they are also aware of the creativity involved.”
Adair believes her musical involvement prepared her to take on leadership roles as a medical student and resident as well. She observes, “Both [music and medicine] require extensive commitment and long hours in order to succeed, as well as attention to detail, patience, the ability to work well with others.”
True to her goal, Adair still loves music, performing regularly in her church’s orchestra, for family weddings and even for special events in her patients’ lives.
Meredith Pittman
When asked if she struggled between pursuing music or medicine, 2005 alumna Meredith Pittman responds, “Oh goodness, yes. This was the hardest decision. I love to play my violin. I have played for as long as I can remember. I love to play alone. I love to play with people.” She says, however, “There was a part of me that just never saw myself on the stage or in a studio for the rest of my life.”
Pittman completed the pre-med courses while pursuing a B.A. in music. Still uncertain about her career path, she organized a medical missionary trip to Bolivia for the summer before her senior year. The experience erased her doubts. “Working with [the doctor], watching him care for people, helping him deliver a baby, learning how to clean wounds, assisting in cleaning our tiny clinic, falling in love with the patients. All of that happened to me and much more in the space of a month. I just knew then that I had to be a doctor because I loved helping people and I loved the science.”
Associate professor of biology Min-Ken Liao encouraged Pittman’s dual interests, both attending her recitals and assuring her that she would make a wonderful doctor. Pittman says, “Knowing that there was a professor that was interested in me as a person helped keep me going even when I was tired.”
She is now a third-year medical student at Washington University in St. Louis and participates in the St. Louis Philharmonic. “I feel able to discuss almost any topic intelligently with my classmates here, all of whom come from very different academic backgrounds,” she says. “Perhaps even more importantly, I believe that Furman instilled in me a desire to continue learning about a wide variety of subjects even after I left the classroom.”