Journal: Music and Medicine
Special Issue: Medicine’s Melodies
Special Issue Editors: Joseph J. Schlesinger, MD et al
Deadline: May 31, 2019 (for Oct special issue release)
Author Guidelines: http://mmd.iammonline.com/index.php/musmed/about/submissions#authorGuidelines
Joseph J. Schlesinger, MD
Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA, 37212
E-Mail: joseph.j.schlesinger@vanderbilt.edu
Webpage: https://www.vumc.org/anesthesiology/person/joseph-schlesinger-ii-md-fccm
Interests: medical alarms, patient safety, multisensory integration
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Sound can range from the blaring horn of a car to one of Brahm’s beautiful symphonies. Unfortunately, the medical environment’s soundscape currently borrows more from the former than the latter. In the clinical environment, auditory stimuli are a means of constant communication and often represent the line between a patient’s life and death. Although audio is critical in this environment, there is a high quantity of it, which interferes with both other auditory stimuli and team communication. Furthermore, the saturated auditory environment detrimentally affects the patients who fall victim to the constant bustle and buzz of the hospital including intensive care units (ICUs), operating rooms (ORs), and their associated medical alarms. Building on recent expansion of
using music to treat anxiety disorders, the basic principles of musical perception are not strongly employed in the healthcare world. As such, there lies a wide range of opportunity for researchers and providers to intervene.
In the healthcare world, audio is integrated into alarms, therapies, and entertainment. The practice of musical therapy has become a well-established aspect of standard-of-care treatments throughout medicine’s disciplines. Similarly, the acoustic features of healthcare alarms can be better addressed using concepts derived from music perception and cognition, as well as neuroscientific principles. While the current employment of music in medicine has its benefits, there must be better ways to utilize music in order to benefit overall patient care. For example, surgeons often use music in the operating room to relax and improve their performance, but does this create harmful masking for alarm perception and miscommunication? The saturated auditory environment of the
high-consequence industry of medicine leads to patient and provider outcomes that may be less than satisfactory.
This Special Issue of Music in Medicine, Medicine’s Melodies, aims to assemble high-quality research articles that address how music and music theory can be better adapted for use in the clinical setting. Areas of interest for this journal include but are not limited to: patients’ perspectives and testimonials on their acoustic experiences as well as observational testimonials from clinicians, the amplitude envelope and auditory alarms, music in the OR and the pros and cons of auditory masking, discussions on the general principles of sound design and the industrial impacts of medical devices, as well as potential future routes for the integration of music and medicine.
Salient Features:
● Acoustic experience of patients and healthcare providers
● Auditory alarm structure: amplitude envelope, melody
● Operating Room music
● Auditory masking
● General principles of sound design and the medical device industry
● Future routes for the integration of music and medicine
Keywords:
● Medical alarms
● Music theory and perception
● Auditory masking
● Patient Safety
● Sensory perception
● Interoperability
● Acoustic environment
Sincerely,
Joseph J. Schlesinger, MD
Christy Johnson Crockett, MD
Michael Schutz, PhD
Judy Edworthy, PhD
Kendall J. Burdick
Jessica P. Klein
Priscilla Hirst, M.Sc.