Earlier today, Shankar Mahadevan tweeted about this conversation he had with a surgeon:
What the surgeon said is very cute. It also happens to be very wrong. Actually, I don’t think the surgeon truly believes this (unless he/she happens to be a plastic surgeon or something similar). I think the surgeon got carried away, blubbered on like fans tend to and said something he/she didn’t really mean. Been there. Totally understand.
However, just in case anyone actually believes in these foot-in-mouth utterances, let me present a few reasons why Medicine vs Music is a non-comparison:
- Medicine saves lives. Music does not. If doctors save even one life in their entire careers, they would have had more impact than musicians.
- Doctors service a need. Musicians service a want.
- Music does have therapeutic effects. There is a very interesting book called Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks that talks about the relationship between music and the brain. But guess what, Oliver Sacks happens to be physician and a professor of neurology and psychiatry. My point – there is no doubt that music helps heal the human soul but if you’re talking about curing depression with music, a trained physician is a better bet than a musician.
Music is a vital element that makes our lives richer. Let’s just leave it at that.