Music can touch patients deeply and thus transform their anxiety and stress into relaxation and healing. Patients with cancer who undergo surgical procedures are highly stressed. To help alleviate these patients' stress and improve their comfort, perioperative nurses at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), New York, surveyed surgical patients and staff members about introducing a perioperative music program. This article reviews the literature on the use of music in perioperative care settings and describes MSKCC's decision to evaluate and then implement a music program.

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The impetus for the Perioperative Nurse Liaison (PNL) program at our cancer center was to reduce anxiety for family members of patients undergoing surgery by improving communication between the family and the perioperative team. The purpose of our quality improvement project was to increase contact with family members during the patient’s surgery and to support families and surgeons during the postoperative family consult when findings were unexpected. After implementing process changes, the PNLs evaluated the program using a short survey given to families after the postoperative consult. Families reported a reduction in stress and anxiety when receiving intraoperative updates either in person or by telephone. In addition, when the PNL accompanied family members to the consult, the family felt supported when receiving unexpected findings. Further, family contact increased from 82% to 98% and consults with surgeons that included the PNL rose from an average of 254 to 500 per year.

Cancer surgery causes stress and anxiety for families and patients. Knowing that communication between family and health care professionals is traditionally fragmented during the perioperative period, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center developed a family-centered program to improve information exchange. This article describes the Perioperative Clinical Nurse Specialist program and the process by which ongoing communication of clinical information and psychosocial support for waiting relatives occurs. Good communication during the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative period is characteristic of quality care at a critical time. The subject program serves to bridge the gap in the continuum of perioperative care.

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