Curative vs. Palliative Care Models

Today was an extremely interesting day and a fabulous learning experience for me! I got the opportunity to observe yet another music therapist on staff here at HPBC; however, today she was giving a presentation on music therapy to the medical staff at a local hospital in order to promote our company and its services, so I got to sit in on that. The presentation was held in a break-room in the ICU and nurses and doctors were coming and going during their breaks to listen. Just from observing their behavior and listening to their comments throughout the presentation, I could tell there was some bitterness towards the idea of hospice in general. It got me thinking about a lecture that my professor once gave about the differences between the curative and palliative care models. In a hospital, it is the job of the doctors and nurses to cure and save patient's lives. The idea of admitting one of their patients into a hospice program is sometimes viewed as a personal defeat. The staff sitting in on this presentation were talking to one another throughout its entirety and seemed to be very skeptical of music therapy especially since it pertained to end-of-life issues and palliative care. A few of the doctors questioned the validity of music therapy and the research behind it, wanting to know every single minute detail pertaining to specific research studies. It made me really think about ways in which we as music therapists need to speak to medical professionals about music therapy. They want to know the facts, the scientific evidence that music therapy is a legitimate allied healthcare profession. How have you all in your careers dealt with explaining music therapy to doctors and nurses with very little background of the profession?