Medical students painted the donated piano with medical images that look like art \u2013 including DNA strands that resemble flowers \u2013 and will present the musical instrument to Community Based Care of Central Florida, which oversees foster care and adoption services in Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties.<\/p>\n
Orlando Realtor Chere Roane Rice and her brother, Glenn Lowery, donated the piano. It belongs to their mother, Gladys McCall Lowery, 97, a lifelong musician who worked as a radio musician, WDBO announcer, minister and music teacher.\u00a0 \u201cMusic has always been a part of my mother\u2019s life,\u201d said Rice. \u201cI wanted the piano to go to something that would be a part of life. When I told my mother where the piano was going, her reaction was, \u2018Now children will play it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The piano is an effort of Art in Medicine (AIM), a student-run organization committed to uniting the arts and sciences in healthcare. College of Medicine students, faculty, staff and family members will perform a musical play called \u201cThe Generous White Coat\u201d with the piano on December 6 at 6 p.m. at the college and will then donate the piano to foster children after the holidays.<\/p>\n
The play, AIM\u2019s second holiday art event, is the story of a seriously ill boy who finds hope and inspiration from his doctors. Ten-year-old Tyler Dean, the son of a second-year UCF medical student, plays the boy. The production is based on \u201cThe Good Doctor,\u201d a UCF tradition. Each year, when students receive their white coats on the first day of medical school, Dean Deborah German asks them to list the traits of \u201cThe Good Doctor\u201d they would want treating a beloved person. As students share their thoughts, German writes the words on a blackboard and the traits become the student\u2019s \u201ccontract\u201d with the medical school.<\/p>\n
The piano is the second one the College of Medicine has donated. Last year, AIM President and second-year medical student Michael Metzner, who is researching the healing aspects of music on children, wanted to donate a piano to Nemours Children\u2019s Hospital as part of his study. He noticed a baby grand piano on Craigslist but didn\u2019t have money to buy it. He persuaded the owners to donate the instrument, which now resides in the Nemours lobby where Metzner and other medical students play it to the delight of patients and their families.<\/p>\n
Metzner, a concert pianist before medical school with undergraduate degrees in biological chemistry and visual arts, believes that all arts help the healing process and have a place in medicine. \u201cMy hope is to change practice in medicine, especially in pediatrics, so that the arts can be used as a beneficial intervention,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The piano will certainly offer benefits to local foster children, said Karla Radka, vice president of Community Based Care. \u201cThanks to the generosity of the Arts in Medicine organization at the UCF College of Medicine, we can now offer the opportunity to our children and youth to explore the undeniable therapeutic benefits of music,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Medical students painted the donated piano with medical images that look like art \u2013 including DNA strands that resemble flowers \u2013 and will present the musical instrument to Community Based Care of Central Florida, which oversees foster care and adoption services in Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties. Orlando Realtor Chere Roane Rice and her brother, Glenn Lowery, donated the piano.…","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":56021,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[3,6,12,17],"tags":[979,1238,9177],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-55854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-community","category-health","category-medicine","tag-college-of-medicine","tag-deborah-german","tag-michael-metzner"],"yoast_head":"\n