Dying to Tchaikovsky with Catherine Sonquist Forest, MD
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What is the opening premise of the episode and why is music important in end‑of‑life care?
At the Nocturinous, we are careful to ensure that all stories comply with healthcare privacy laws. Details may have been changed to ensure patient confidentiality. All views expressed are those of the person speaking and not their employer.
Hearing is one of our most potent and emotional senses, but when our patients die in the hospital, it's often to a soundtrack of noisy hospital equipment. What if instead we could drift away with a voice or a song? I'm Emily Silverman, and this is The Nocturne Stories from the World of Medicine. In this next story, family medicine physician Catherine Forrest tells us about a melodic experience that she had in the hospital, which transported her back to her childhood. Afterward, we talk about incorporating music into the healing process and being a woman and a mother in medicine. Allow me to introduce Catherine Forrest.
Of course it was the ER nurse that figured it out. This Motherly Ukrainian woman sidles up to me and pats my belly. You're his child, no?
Jesus.
How did she know? Only two days before I'd been hiding in the nurse's bathroom in the ER, propped up in the stall with pregnancy test in my hand, waiting to see what I was gonna find. And when that second pink dot lit up that I was pregnant. He screamed, holding it in. But that was gonna be a secret. Ісі, де с воз за найтін ейтіс, а то майнолед. There'd been only one woman at my university which shall be named unnamed. That it had a baby in training and hadn't dropped out of medicine completely. The nurse promised me she wouldn't tell anyone, but whenever I came into the emergency room, she gave me that knowing look. This was Mount Zion Hospital. It's in a neighborhood that is at that time was largely Eastern European and Russian.
We had mostly immigrants for our patients. I remember this one feisty older Hungarian woman who had life-size posters of the 49ers in her room and would page me overhead excitedly. when she found out that I was from Hungarian heritage. And when I got there, you know, we were all about Roger Craig and Joe Montana's latest play, but mainly she just wanted to pinch my cheek.
How does Catherine Forest first describe discovering she was pregnant while caring for a dying patient?
Mutzik Cheney that she would say. Just like my Hungarian grandparents. It was really a sweet and wonderful time. In so many ways. The morning I found out that I was pregnant, I had admitted a ninety-two year old Russian woman to our service. I was a third year medical student on the team, and she'd had a stroke and was in a coma and unresponsive. And her son comes walking up and tells me, and the intern, we want to have dignity, he says. And the intern like looks blankly at him. Keep her zis way, he says. We want the friend to come visit Zakz and he's like the and turns like completely clueless. But I could hear and English in any One's speech in fact. When I was nine years old is when I figured out that my grandparents uh didn't speak English like other people.
I thought that's just how older people spoke. You know, like my my friends would come over and I'd be translating English into English. Um so when this ninety two year old woman was there and her son was trying to speak with us, I could step in and translate and I did. I was able to say that this woman. S her had a living will the family wanted her to live and that a special guest would be coming that evening. It is Isaac's stern, he says. Sixth. only the greatest violinist of that time? My jaw drops, But my classical musician's heart leapt two octaves. So later that night, quite late, this older, you know, balding, thick man comes striding up to the nursing station with his worn violin case and I go to meet him.
I would like to find Miss Beena, he says. Mrs. Beana, I'm making up her name. And uh and I I my my I'm completely speechless because I recognize Isaac Stern. So I we walk down the hallway and a nighttime hospital is a sacred place and really quite odd. There's that blue light from rooms for people watching TV and there's the sound of, you know, canned laughter and mechanical sounds of respirators and the nurses are all different places charting, but there are no visitors.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the opening premise of the episode and why is music important in end‑of‑life care?
0:00–2:44
2
How does Catherine Forest first describe discovering she was pregnant while caring for a dying patient?
2:44–9:53
3
What led to the chance encounter with violinist Isaac Stern in the hospital hallway?
9:53–16:37
4
How did Isaac Stern’s Tchaikovsky performance change the patient’s dying experience?
16:37–21:21
5
Why does Catherine reflect on her childhood piano memories while listening to the violin?
21:21–32:17