Following a totally chance meeting in the staff cafeteria with Alison, a professional music therapist, I asked her if she might be interested experimenting with some music therapy in our emergency department waiting room.
 

The audition.
Alison plays the harp. And once a week, she provides a service to our oncology patients.

Whilst I was chatting with her, I wondered if the introduction of some live ambient music in the waiting room might have any therapeutic value. So (at the risk of being branded some sort of new-age hippie nurse dude by my colleagues) I invited her to come and play for a while.
To my surprise, she was very excited at this opportunity.

There is a lot of literature exploring the benefits of music therapy in various clinical settings including neonatal intensive care units, oncology, aged care and operating theatres. But not a many of those settings include the stressful and quasi-catastrophic environs of the Emergency Department.

How would patients in the waiting room respond to live harp music? Would it be well received or totally unwelcome?

We agreed that for this first session, Alison would only spend a short time playing, and at the first sign of unhappiness or discontent we would abandon the experiment.

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