February 20, 2024
The concert hall is eerily silent as Irish conductor Peter Shannon raises the baton, a silent signal to the orchestra to be ready. The posture is a familiar one to Shannon, who has conducted orchestras in Europe and the US since he began his music career more than two decades ago.
It’s a career that now brings Shannon from Cork, Ireland, to Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE). Born a musician into a family of doctors, Shannon has always had a desire to connect music and medicine with an instinctive belief that music’s power to move people is deeply linked to healing...
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Peter Shannon and Dr. Jacqueline Huntly of the AIMH are delighted to announce their appointment as Affiliate Faculty Professors in the Department of Bioethics and Medical Humanities, in the department of medicine at Mercer University. These appointments solidify both the AIMH and Mercer’s continued commitment to the value and importance of music within the Health Humanities.
The programs of the AIMH uniquely incorporate both music and the expertise of the professional conductor as a new and creative way for doctors and other healthcare professionals to view their profession. Listening, perspective change, flow, and creativity are all deeper aspects of music that Peter Shannon brings from his life as a professional orchestral conductor.
His colleague, Dr. Jacqueline Huntly, brings her experience and perspective as a physician, physician self-leadership coach and writer to the development of their joint programs.
This collaboration was launched with the AIMH full day program “Nurturing the Inner Healer, which was attended by 150 medical students from the Mercer medical campuses of Savannah, Macon, Columbus and Rome. Dr Brian Childs, head of bioethics and medical humanities at Mercer commented that: “It truly for me was a pivotal event and from what I am hearing the students feel the same way. The energy in the room built to a crescendo as the day went on and built to a success. Both of you are master teachers and facilitators and the musicians deserve our special thanks.”
We wish to thank Professor Childs and Dean of Medicine, Dr. Jean Sumner for their continued support and trust in our work.
The American Institute for Music and Healing is excited to begin a new research project in November 2021 at the Curtis and Elizabeth Anderson Cancer Institute Savannah, GA, USA.
AIMH director Peter Shannon received IRB approval for his research project, to be run over 12 months, which will track the efficacy of musicians playing for patients receiving chemotherapy at the Infusion area of the Anderson Cancer Institution. “What we have seen in the past is that music offers a ‘portal’ or ‘prism’ for patients to use the music being played for them as a path for compassionate connection to moments, experiences and people in their lives. This research project allows us to document this experience and share our findings with others; to truly add some meat to the bones of the old adage that ‘music is healing’.”
Bioethics is an area of study focusing on the moral and social aspects of medical policy and practice, while medical humanities integrates the humanities, social science and the arts into medical education. This new department combines these two areas of study and is made up of clinicians and educators who are dedicated to training students and health care practitioners in the intricacies of medical and health-related ethics and professionalism, with particular focus on rural health care and medically underserved populations and communities...
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