Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Welcome to CU Now Insights. I'm Rebecca McEnroy, executive producer for CU Now. What can singing in harmony teach us about support, joy, and the power of well-being in healthcare? From episode 70, Northwell Health Nurse Choir, nurses Winnie Mealy and Keisha Jeboyne share how coming together with colleagues from across hospitals and specialties during the pandemic to form a choir became a powerful healing experience.
Through music, they found connection, mentorship, and renewal, reminding us that creating art with others can be a profound source of joy and strength. And Keisha reflects on how the encouragement and confidence she gained through singing directly informs the compassionate, empowering care she provides to her patients. ♪ What's so proud at the twilight's last gleaming?
Okay, so if you look at this choir and you live in this choir, it's very, very similar to the teams we work with in the hospital. So in other words,
People coming together with the same mission. The choir is the same thing. All of us come from, I believe, 11 different hospitals, all specialties, a lactation specialist. I'm the director of perioperative services, Keisha's mother, baby. We have NICU, neonatal intensive care nurses, pediatric intensive care nurses, nurses from all over. We have nurses from Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Long Island. You talk about diversity.
There's not one of us that's the same. Yet when we came together that first day and we put the music on,
spectacular. I mean, I was proud to be part of it. There's also a lot of mentoring in the choir. We have young people who are looking to navigate, maybe become an educator. Next thing you know, we're having a round table and we're trying to help one of the nurses figure out her future, right? So we all are bringing something from a different place or some of us older ones, we take one of the younger ones under our wing and, you know, we're learning from them. They're learning from us, not just nursing stuff, but life, life experience.
the harmonies and all the melodies, you transcend. You forget about everything and you just live in that space for a moment. Hearing the sopranos and the altos and the tenors and the baritones just blend together. It just gives you this sense of peace
It's like we're working together on the unit, but instead musically. Coming together and we're being supportive and we're being there for each other, but this is through sound. We're blending. We have our harmonies down pack. We have the words together. It's like an escape as soon as we start singing. And I think that's where the healing component comes in for me because I don't have to think about anything else in that moment. It changed my practice in a way where I felt like
Patients need that encouragement. They need to feel inspired. And just like we give that inspiration when we're out there doing interviews or whenever we sing, I felt like I wanted to bring that back for my patients. So one thing that I would say is a little different with my practice is that
When I'm cheering a mom on or when I'm giving her the tools that she needs to take home this new life, I show her like, listen, you can do it. I was pulled out of my element to do what we are doing right now and giving inspiration to others.
people around the world, I give them that same encouragement and try to give them that same inspiration so that they feel confident that they can do this. And I felt like being in front of reporters and having these Zoom interviews and being on podcasts and just sending out all this love and inspiration that we do for everyone in the world has given me the chance to give that back to my patients. I get trapped listening to
Nurses Keisha Jaboin and Winnie Mealy from Episode 70, Northwell Health Nurse Choir. You can listen to the entire show and find over 100 See You Now episodes in our library when you subscribe to See You Now wherever you get podcasts. For See You Now, I'm Rebecca McEnroy. Thanks for listening.