Practice makes perfect
Music important part of life for Cape Breton medical couple
SYDNEY — For Dr. Tom Hewlett and Dr. Susan Ritcey, their daily practice isn’t limited to keeping their patients healthy.
Thanks to regular music practice, the Coxheath couple is keeping healthy as well. Both have been involved in music their entire lives and especially now while working as busy doctors within the Nova Scotia Health Authority. A room in their home is devoted to music and there, they get together, sometimes with others appropriately distanced, to practise music.
There’s no tonic quite like it, says Ritcey, a Sydney family doctor who has been involved in music all of her life.
“Oh heavens yes,” says Ritcey. “I also sing in the Cape Breton Chorale. There is actually lots of science about choral singing and how it improves your health. So I think any musical interaction, anything that brings diversion to your life, another outlet, is good but music especially has some science behind it.”
Music has long been regarded as one of the best ways to relieve stress, discomfort and anxiety, even during medical procedures.
“I grew up in a very musical church environment so that’s how I learned to play the guitar and sing,” she says, adding that was also a part of the attraction to Hewlett, also a lifelong musician.
“I played since I was a teenager,” says Hewlett.
“I started off with guitar and picked up a few other instruments on the way: mandolin, banjo, harmonica, pedal steel.”
They decided it would be good for their mental health to play with other people so they formed bands, including the one that meets on Wednesday nights, Code White. Ritcey plays bass, Hewlett plays guitar while Ed Petruskavich plays guitar, Carl Calder contributes drums and psychologist Garth Nathanson performs on guitar and mandolin. Everyone sings. Code White is a hospital term referring to an aggressive patient. Hewlett described their driving style as eclectic that people can dance to.
He had initially wanted to be a full-time musician but ended up going into medicine.
“It’s busy but it’s the best job in the world,” said Hewlett about his nephrology (kidney) specialty. “I got into music because I wanted to become famous — so what happened? I know. So I became a doctor so I could make a living. I didn’t become famous so I had to have a plan B.
“But the plan B is good.”