Bringing a joyful song to patients at Lawrence General

Diane McGary has always been a singer. Since her children were small, she always remembered humming a tune to calm down, or sing them to sleep, she said. Music, as she explains, is therapy.
 
Since 2016, McGary, of Dracut, has shared her gift with Lawrence General Hospital – working as a volunteer therapeutic musician, traveling to various hospital wings to offer impromptu 20- to 30-minute concerts to the delight of patients and staff.
 
“There’s a lot of value in what I do – I can see the impact it has on patients,” McGary, a certified music practitioner, explains of her soothing bedside vocals. “It’s very cathartic for people in whatever stage they’re in.”
 
According to McGary, live therapeutic music has been shown to reduce blood pressure, stabilize heart rate, decrease muscular tension, reduce the need for anesthesia and pain relievers and accelerate surgical recovery.
 
Using techniques garnered from an 80-hour course she took called “Music for Healing and Transition,” McGary said she can assess a patient’s needs just by visualizing them. She doesn’t ask for their name or their medical history, she says, and often just makes up songs as she goes.
 
“Often I can just look at a patient and know what’s going on,” McGary says. “I’ll sing to anyone.”

For three hours each week, McGary walks through the units and asks nurses who might enjoy a visit. Sometimes she’ll go into the rooms, while other times she’ll sing from the doorway, humming quietly as a patient gets used to her presence. The nurses occasionally peek in as they hear her comforting melodies.
 
McGary often takes requests, as she did on one recent February afternoon.
 
“There’s one gentleman who’s been here since before Christmas. When I went to his room, he asked for Christmas songs. I said, ‘It’s way past Christmas, let me give you winter songs.’ But there was such a need, after I went through winter songs, I sang carols for 20 minutes because that’s what he wanted and needed,” she explained.
 
That so-called “in the moment” care is what McGary says makes her work so special.
 
At the beginning of the pandemic, a local resident took her grandmother out of a nursing home so she could die peacefully at the woman’s home. The family called McGary in their ultimate time of need.  
 
“The woman’s grandmother was dying. I sang to them and I could hear the tears falling over the phone as I sang,” McGary said. “Her grandmother wound up passing as I was singing, but it gave her and her grandmother what they both needed.”
 
For McGary, each day is different, but the goal remains the same: To provide comfort and compassion to patients one song at a time.
 
“I love what I do and how I am able to help patients,” she said. “It is really exciting and humbling work.”
 
McGary’s program is funded this year through grants from the Lawrence, Georgetown and North Andover Cultural Councils, which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, she said. She only recently returned to the hospital post-pandemic and anticipates seeing patients once weekly depending on need and her availability. Nurses who are aware of patients in need of a visit are asked to contact Volunteer Coordinator Brenda LeBlanc to coordinate one. McGary also takes on private clients, with more information available at her website www.dianessong.com.