TAMPA, Fla. — At Tampa’s Moffitt Cancer Center, the Arts in Medicine program is providing a different kind of healing to the patients.

Cancer patient Everett Paul Cole found out what makes this treatment special. 

Listening to an instrumental version of When I’m Sixty-Four from the Beatles, Cole needed a pick-me-up recently while staying at Moffitt Cancer Center.

What You Need To Know

  •  Arts in Medicine program at Moffitt Cancer Center provides healing through music

  •  Everett Paul Cole gave an anecdote of how the music helped his stay at the hospital during cancer treatment

  •  The arts program also provides a variety of other arts healing practices

He described what usually happens when he hears music played by the Artist in Residence at the hospital.

“I was having a bad day the other day,” Cole said. “I leave my door open to my room where you see that most of the rooms are closed. Everybody's locked themselves in a cube, I have my door open."

And then his outlook started to change.

"My fear, my anxiety it just disappeared for the rest of the day. It was gone,” he said. “That's why we were just like...well, we needed that."

Corbin Smith is an Artist in Residence at Moffitt.

He was playing a keyboard in the one of the waiting rooms for Everett.

Smith said the Arts in Medicine program provides healing to patients.

"More than just the music, it's about caring for somebody else and being there and being present and helping in any little ways that you can," Corbin Smith said.

They perform in waiting areas, clinics and at the patients' bedside. Corbin started as a valet at Moffitt while he was a student at University of South Florida. He said this program is special and changed his view of what music can do for medicine.

"You know you get the world class doctors and medicine and stuff like that,” he said. “But not a lot of places are taking care of the person, the soul."

Lloyd Goldstein played for the Florida Orchestra for more than two decades.

He said his work at Moffitt has struck a different tune.

“And it's just an absolutely beautiful thing,” Lloyd said. “It's a privilege to be able to be with these people and to be welcomed in and it's the music that does that magic."

Both Lloyd and Corbin agree the job has injected a healthy dose of inspiration as well.

“I have endless people to play for and endless motivation to learn new music and be as good as a person as I could be," said Corbin.

The Arts in Medicine program started in 1998 at Moffitt.

They also visit patients in their rooms to provide a variety of healing art practices such as paintings.

"I needed it that day,” said Everett. “It was at the right time...I don't know how or why. I'm just glad it did."