When a Doctor Plays Guitar at the Ohio State Wexner Medical Center

The monitors beep steadily inside a patient room at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center.

Then a voice begins to sing.

“Rock me mama like a wagon wheel…”

The familiar lyric drifts through the room as a doctor strums an acoustic guitar at the patient’s bedside.

Dr. Joshua Norman, a consultation-liaison psychiatrist, pauses during rounds to sing, using music as a way to connect with patients in a setting more often defined by charts and clinical conversations. Norman has incorporated live music into his psychiatric rounds, playing guitar for patients as part of his approach to emotional care.

He has played guitar for nearly 17 years and said he credits musicians such as John Mayer for shaping his passion for music.

During medical school, however, he said he began to notice how the pace of training and growing reliance on technology in modern hospitals sometimes left little room for human connection.

“It’s kind of a corporatized medical world,” Norman said. “Technology is rapidly advancing, which I think is great in a lot of ways. But as time has gone on, humanism gets lost along that journey.”

He said that realization took shape two years ago in the intensive care unit at The James.

A nurse told Norman about a patient with end-stage cancer who had grown up listening to her father play guitar. Remembering how meaningful that had been for her as a child, Norman said he wondered whether live music might lift her spirits.

He brought his guitar to the patient’s bedside and played softly while nurses and family members listened nearby.

“That kind of started from there,” Norman said. “I thought, ‘Why not just start playing from people’s bedside?’”

Among the many visits, Norman said one patient in particular stayed with him.

The patient had extreme depression and had grown withdrawn during a prolonged hospital stay at the hospital. During Norman’s rounds, he said conversations had become guarded and the patient had not spoken in nearly two months.

When Norman brought his guitar into the room and began playing, the atmosphere shifted. He said the quiet tension in the room softened as the music filled the space.

For the first time since arriving at the hospital, Norman said the patient smiled.

Live music, Norman said, can create space for patients to reconnect with memories and emotions that illness often overshadows. He said he recalled playing for patients with severe dementia who were suddenly able to remember the words to songs even when other memories had faded.

Experiences like these, Norman said, shaped how he thinks about the role of music in medicine.

The guitar has become a familiar part of his hospital routine. Norman now moves through different units across the medical center, from the cancer center to the Brain and Spine Hospital, playing songs for patients facing a wide range of illnesses, including cancer, depression and recovery after suicide attempts.

Norman said some of the moments remain especially meaningful.

Another patient he said he remembers was a man in his late 40s with end-stage liver disease transitioning to hospice. The patient had loved the George Jones song, “Choices,” throughout his life.

Norman said he went home that night, learned the song and returned the next day to perform it.

“He was probably going to hear live music for one of the last times,” Norman said. “His whole family was in the room.”

Norman said he learned later that the moment had been mentioned in the patient’s obituary, a quiet testament to how deeply the experience resonated with the family.

During a recent visit, Norman played “Wagon Wheel” by Darius Rucker for Terry Malinowski, a patient recovering from endocarditis, a life-threatening infection of the heart that had kept him hospitalized for five weeks straight.

Malinowski said the music instantly broke the normally quiet hospital atmosphere and lifted the mood.

“You get this kind of rush of energy, this kind of elation early on when he starts playing,” Malinowski said. “It uplifts your spirits. Music resonates in your body in a way other things don’t.”

Norman’s music rounds have also left an impression on the medical students who observe them.

Esha Chadha, a third-year medical student, said seeing Norman sing for patients revealed a side of medicine that students rarely see during traditional hospital routines.

“It’s not only amazing for the patients,” Chadha said. “It’s amazing as a medical student to really see the human side of medicine.”

Chadha said hospital days often revolve around charts, lab results and patient updates, making moments of creativity stand out.

“Our day is usually extremely routine,” Chadha said. “But when Dr. Norman was like ‘Let’s do music rounds,’ it changed the environment.”

Now, Norman said he hopes to expand the idea further.

He said he is working to formalize a program called “Music Is Medicine,” which would allow physicians, medical students and hospital staff who play instruments to perform for patients throughout the medical center.

For Norman, he said his goal is to simply bring moments of humanity into an environment where technology and treatment often take center stage.

Sometimes, those moments leave a lasting impression.

“There’s nothing to lose and a lot to gain,” Malinowski said.