Doreen Ketchens plays “When The Saints Go Marching In”.


“Improvisation is an important aspect of patient-physician communication. It is also a defining feature of jazz music performance. This essay uses examples from jazz to illustrate principles of improvisation that relate to an individual communication act (ie, building space into one’s communication), a physician’s communicative style (i.e., developing one’s voice), and the communicative process of the medical encounter (i.e., achieving ensemble). At all 3 levels, the traditions of jazz improvisation can inform efforts to research and teach medical interviewing by fostering a contextualized view of patient-physician communication.”

Jazz and the ‘Art’ of Medicine: Improvisation in the Medical Encounter via Annals of Family Medicine.

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