Otolaryngologist and Professional Musician Says Medicine and Music Work in Sync

For Soham Roy, MD, MMM, who worked as a professional violinist for several years before becoming an otolaryngologist, being able to perform violin on stage with one of his longtime patients was “one of the coolest things I ever did.”

Working with children and their families over time and being invited to their celebrations years later is one of the most rewarding parts of being a pediatric otolaryngologist, said Dr. Roy.

“I had a patient—one of my favorite patients still—who was raised by a single mom, and I think he sort of looked to me as an older male mentor,” said Dr. Roy. The patient, who began seeing Dr. Roy at around age 9 or 10, was a violinist, as is Dr. Roy. For the patient’s senior year high school concerto performance, he asked Dr. Roy to join him in performing the two violin parts of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Concerto for Two Violins,” first and third movements.

“I was blown away—it was emotional,” said Dr. Roy, whose own father died when he was 2 years old. “Being raised without a father myself and being able to do something like that for someone else—I guarantee you, I got much more out of it than he did.”

Musical Beginnings

Dr. Roy, 51, holds several professional roles in medicine. He is currently the director of pediatric otolaryngology, a professor and vice chairman for academic affairs, quality and safety, the chief of pediatric otolaryngology–head and neck surgery, the director of undergraduate medical education, and the assistant dean for admissions and student affairs at the McGovern Medical School, University of Texas Health Houston and Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. This spring, however, he will join Children’s Hospital/Colorado School of Medicine in Denver as the chief of pediatric otolaryngology.

Long before he began his medical career, Dr. Roy was a musician. As a young child, Dr. Roy first heard his older sister Ina practice the violin. “I fell in love listening to her play the music,” he recalled. “I begged my mom to play.” He began studying classical violin at age 6, accelerated quickly, and ultimately as a teenager went on to play the violin and study music full time.

“I played in opera houses and in chamber music groups as a teen,” he said. “I did it for a few years and it was incredible, but it was a terrible way to make a living,” he said. Dr. Roy recalled living in a 600-square-foot apartment with four other musicians and playing in subway stations to make spare change. “I learned a lot about resilience, but it wasn’t a great way to live,” he said.

His mother told him that he would always love music, but asked, “What will you do on the day that you don’t want to play anymore? You can do something else for a living and can always go play music to cheer yourself up.”

Moving Toward Medicine

With that advice, Dr. Roy returned to a more traditional educational route. He attended Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., graduating in 1991 with a degree in human biology concentrating on medical computer science. Interested in medical informatics, Dr. Roy applied to medical school because an advisor said he “needed an MD to speak the language.” But once he began at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., Dr. Roy didn’t keep up with informatics. Instead, he searched for a new path while using music as a pressure release valve.

“Medical school was an angsty time for me, and I did a lot of songwriting then,” he said. “I wasn’t interested in becoming a star; I wrote because it was therapeutic. If I need something to remind me of events during that time, I listen to one of my albums and I remember what was going on when I wrote that song,” he said.

Dr. Roy’s music, which he wrote, recorded, and produced in the mid-1990s, was created on 8-track digital and 4-track cassettes and reflect the pop and new wave songs he grew up with as a 1980s teen. “It wasn’t like I had amazing computer technology to record this stuff like we have now,” he said. “But everything I write, to this day, sounds like that early work.”

Every otolaryngologist I know has a passion outside of work, and doing it makes you a better doctor. —Soham Roy, MD, MMM

In medical school, Dr. Roy gravitated toward otolaryngology. “I saw incredible personalities in otolaryngology—people were wonderfully warm and welcoming. The residents and faculty I met at Washington University during that time were the kinds of people I wanted to spend my life with.”

Working with kids also appealed. “One of the things I love about being a pediatric otolaryngologic surgeon is that a lot of my patients are complex kids who will need intensive long-term care, and it’s a relationship you build over a lifetime. A lot of times, even with short-term patients, you have to build a rapport quickly,” he said.

The Music–Medicine Connection

For Dr. Roy, music’s elements can help develop or strengthen those ties.

“There’s no easier way to build rapport than when you play music,” he said. “It’s just so similar to moments when you have to engage a stranger in your office. You have to do the same thing on stage—make someone feel welcome and warm. Being able to do that has really helped me in both arenas. When you’re onstage, you have to connect with people using nonverbal communication and body language. It’s the same when you’re giving a scientific talk,” he said.

After graduating from medical school in 1995, Dr. Roy became a resident in the department of otolaryngology at the University of Miami and, after completing his fellowship training in 2002, joined a heavy metal band, which got a lot of local recognition. “We did some touring, and I had an opportunity to audition for a big-name rock band,” he said. At the same time, his metal band wanted to move forward with their music ambitions, but Dr. Roy chose instead to focus on his medical career. “I had just become an attending physician three months before,” he said. While the person who ultimately won the spot with that big-name rock band won a Grammy Award, Dr. Roy said his focus on medicine as a career is the right choice for him. “My role as a physician is a huge part of who I am, though my role as a musician is the same,” he said.

Playing with the Band

Since he arrived in Houston in 2008, Dr. Roy has played the bass guitar, played keyboards, and sung backup vocals in a 1980s and 1990s cover band called Stereomaze. They play gigs in area bars and clubs, feeding off the crowd’s energy when determining their set list.

“We have a great time,” Dr. Roy said. “When I play with a band, I don’t play with other doctors. I’m trying to do something therapeutic for myself and put away my stressful day job. My bandmates work in the oil and tech industries and in operations, and not one of them ever says to me, ‘What happened at work today?’ All they say is, ‘Are you ready to go? Ready to play?’ I can just be myself.”

Pre-pandemic, Dr. Roy and his band played five to six times a month; gigs included setting up to play, performing, then breaking down their set, typically playing from 9:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. With the pandemic, Stereomaze now plays one to two times a month. “On a Saturday night, I can go out to a fun bar, hang with my amazing friends in the band, and I get to have drinks and hear music I like. Instead of being a passive participant, we’re playing songs we picked.”

A recent set list featured INXS’s “Don’t Change,” The Knack’s “My Sharona,” The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside,” and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” with some Luke Bryan, Garth Brooks, and Johnny Cash tunes thrown in for the locals. “Living in Texas, you learn to play country songs because people go nuts,” he said. “The crowds get up and start dancing. I don’t particularly like it, but nobody is out there saying, ‘Oh, the bass player missed a note.’”

There have been several times when the parents of Dr. Roy’s patients have been in the audience when he plays.  “Houston is a big city with a small town feel,” he explains. “People will eyeball me strangely and ask, ‘Are you Dr. Roy?’ By that point, I’m usually five vodkas in and I’ll answer, ‘No; I get that a lot. But that guy must be really handsome.’”

Another time, when playing with a different band at a St. Patrick’s Day late afternoon show, Dr. Roy said the chief operations officer of the hospital where he worked was at the bar while he was setting up with the band. “He walked up to me, and I said, ‘Dude, I won’t tell if you won’t.’”

I saw incredible personalities in otolaryngology—people were wonderfully warm and welcoming. —Soham Roy, MD, MMM

Finding Passion Beyond Medicine

Dr. Roy urges physicians or others who think about picking up an instrument or any other hobby that’s been neglected or long-buried to just get started.

“It’s never too late to find a passion that you always wanted to try, even if you aren’t doing it now,” he said. Despite being an accomplished musician, Dr. Roy had never played drums until Lee Smith, MD, a former resident of his and now chief of pediatric otolaryngology at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New York City, urged him to do so at an otolaryngology meeting in Amsterdam. During the pandemic lockdown, Dr. Roy realized that, since he couldn’t operate, he had time to teach himself exactly how to play using a borrowed drum set.

“Every otolaryngologist I know has a passion outside of work, and doing it makes you a better doctor,” he said. “It’s a form of relief you can’t find anywhere else. It can be your family or church or something else.”

In addition to spending time playing music and enjoying his dogs, family, and athletic activities, Dr. Roy spends time with his 7-year-old daughter. “She doesn’t play music,” he said. “I always hoped she’d play the drums one day so I could play bass with her, or the other way around—maybe one day.”

Ultimately, Dr. Roy knows that balancing music with medicine is exactly the right thing for him. “When I’m doing the music thing, I’m only thinking about what I’m doing to be a great musician,” he said. “And when I am at work, I focus on being the best otolaryngologist I can be.”   

---

Cheryl Alkon is a freelance medical writer based in Massachusetts.