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Music is the best medicine for frontline worker Sonia Baldock

Music is the best medicine for frontline worker Sonia Baldock

Ahead of Corpus Medicorum's second 2021 concert, orchestra member and ICU nurse Sonia Baldock tells us why music really is the best medicine.

As a nurse in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in one of Melbourne’s busiest hospitals, I have been right at the frontline of the pandemic. Although I look after critically ill patients every day, nothing prepared me for the tragedies of COVID-19. There were times when I felt helpless, hopeless and defeated. However, I have always found comfort in music.

I have been a nurse for seven years, but before that I was a violinist. 

For 15 years, I played with Australia’s finest symphony orchestras, including the beloved Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. I never thought there would be an opportunity to combine my passions until I heard about Corpus Medicorum, a unique orchestra comprised of doctors, medical students and health professionals like myself. I joined the orchestra six years ago and have played in all their concerts since.

When music venues were forced to close last year, it was very hard on people like me, for whom music is so special. 

I missed performing with my medical colleagues in Corpus Medicorum and enjoying concerts in my own time. So I began listening to ABC Classic all day long on my days off, which helped keep me sane when things were most challenging. The hospital also assembled a ‘scrub choir’, which was a welcome source of fun.

There are many challenges of being a frontline worker. 

I recall supporting a ward following a COVID-19 outbreak which led to its entire staff needing to quarantine and tending to vulnerable elderly patients who were lonely and incredibly stressed. It is so important to find ways to comfort ourselves through life’s hardest times, and I’m glad Corpus Medicorum is able to come together to share music with our community again. Music holds a place in my heart. Music completes my being. Music is life.

Sonia Baldock, ICU nurse

Corpus Medicorum performs on Sunday 16 May at 5pm in Elisabeth Murdoch Hall. Find out more and get your tickets here.

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