Professional entanglements: A qualitative systematic review of healthcare musicians’ work in somatic hospital wards

Abstract

Introduction: The purpose of this review is to explore research literature beyond music therapy and music medicine studies that addresses healthcare musicians' work in hospitals. Music-related and intersectoral collaboration in contemporary healthcare may appear as if all music practitioners, including music therapists and healthcare musicians, maintain the same professional stance, harmonized goals, and orientations in their work. We argue that this is not the case, either in practice or in research, and therefore this complex field is in need of conceptual clarification as well as educational guidance. Method: A systematic search of peer-reviewed literature with PRISMA yielded 16 studies relating to healthcare musicians' work in somatic hospital settings. These studies were analysed with the quality appraisal tool CASP, utilizing the descriptive statistics and thematic approach, and assessed with the ROBIS tool. Results: Within the scope of the review, the quality of the studies, as well as the reporting of methods and analysis, were very diverse. The review indicates that the hybrid professional work of healthcare musicians in hospitals does not stem from the practices of music therapy. Instead, the healthcare musicians' work draws from different historical, societal, and philosophical contexts, developed mainly in the twenty-first century. Discussion: Despite the rich descriptions of the healthcare musicians' practice and work presented in this review, it remains questionable whether the profession of healthcare musician is already internationally established. However, the emerging movement of expanding professionalism, which healthcare musicians are a part of, needs to be addressed more clearly in practice, research, and education.

Voices of Musicians: Virtual Live Bedside Music Concerts in Inpatient Care

“…Furthermore, future research must rigorously quantify the benefits of programs like the VSI to patients, staff, and musicians via robust scientific methodology, such as clinical trials. Doing so will also identify key mechanisms by which music impacts outcomes, as is recommended by previous research [21].…”

Music professionalism promoting gerotranscendence: An instrumental case study of healthcare musicians in an eldercare hospital

“…Higher music education could consider how to better support students by creating opportunities to practice similar professional imagination (Laes et al, 2021), for example by understanding and navigating different structural possibilities outside of the silos of music professions (Westerlund & Gaunt, 2021). In this way, music professionals expand their own work opportunities, and increase the broader societal relevance and institutional resilience of their profession (Koivisto & Tähti, 2020; Laes et al, 2021).…”

“…Research on musicians’ and music educators’ work in medical and healthcare environments, especially in somatic and general hospital services, has remained scarce so far, and musicians working in hospitals represent a rather new occupational group (see, however, De Wit, 2020; Dons, 2019; Koivisto & Tähti, 2020; Preti, 2009; Preti & Welch, 2013). Nevertheless, music has been practiced and performed for a long time in general and psychiatric hospitals by the eldercare patients themselves, hospital personnel, and volunteers, as well as professional musicians and music educators.…”

Expanding professionalism in music and higher music education: A changing game

“…1 A review of earlier research indicates that there is so far fairly limited knowledge or theoretical conceptualisation concerning the work of music practitioners referring to themselves as hospital musicians, healthcare musicians, or health musicians (e.g. Bonde, 2011;Koivisto & Tähti, 2020;Musique & Santé, 2019;Ruud, 2012). Recent decades have, however, seen a growing body of music therapy research on the medical care of premature infants (see Loewy et al, 2013;Shoemark & Dearn, 2016;Van der Heijden et al, 2016).…”