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In this episode, we sit down with J.C. Sue, a practicing board-certified family medicine physician and founder of Tune Rx, a medical music study resource. J.C. shares her unique journey of turning complex medical concepts into catchy songs to make studying more enjoyable and effective. We dive into how music can improve memory retention, reduce stress, and make learning fun—transforming the often grueling medical school experience.
J. C. Sue is a practicing, board-certified family medicine physician and founder of the medical music study resource Tune Rx.
He discusses the KevinMD article, “Music as a tool for explaining medical concepts.”
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Transcript
Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show. Subscribe at KevinMD.com/podcast. Today we welcome J.C. Sue. He is a family medicine physician and founder of the medical music study resource Tune Rx. Today’s KevinMD article is “Music as a tool for explaining medical concepts.” J.C., welcome to the show.
J.C. Sue: Thank you, Kevin, so nice to be on the podcast.
Kevin Pho: Wonderful. And you’re a family medicine physician, so tell us a little bit about what you do and your practice.
J.C. Sue: Yes. So my usual day-to-day practice would be that I’m in a clinic. I have a position that’s a little bit more of a leadership position, so about half of my work time I’m spending in meetings or doing admin stuff, but the other half of the time I do get to see patients. And since I am a DO, doctor of osteopathic medicine, that does also include some appointments set aside for osteopathic manipulative treatment, or OMT.
Kevin Pho: All right, and your KevinMD articles have revolved around music. I know a few years ago you recorded a song on KevinMD. So tell us the influence music has had on your life and background.
J.C. Sue: Music has actually been a part of my life for a very long time, since early childhood. My parents actually got me into piano lessons when I was about four, and shortly after I also wanted to play the violin, so I took lessons for both instruments at the same time. Later on picked up handbells, clarinet, bass. And then when I got to medical school I figured out that music could be a useful study tool for me, because I could transform lecture notes into song lyrics and then not only remember them more easily but also review the concepts in a shorter amount of time.
Kevin Pho: All right, and we’re going to talk more about that intersection between medical education and music. But before I ask that question, I noticed that a lot of people in medicine, physicians specifically, have a background in music. They sing for choirs, they play in physician orchestras. Talk more about that intersection between medicine and music. What are some of the commonalities between the two?
J.C. Sue: Well, so I think music is actually an activity that many people get involved with in one way or another growing up, whether that’s in an elementary school or middle school or high school band, or playing in a youth symphony, singing in a choir.
And I think a lot of people find that, I mean just in general, not even just doctors, that it’s a useful creative outlet. It also is an activity that can help foster a sense of community, because often music is played or sung with other musicians. So definitely I know that was a source of community for a few of my classmates and myself during at least our preclinical years of medical school, and I’m sure that other people have had the experiences.
Kevin Pho: And now that you’re graduated and finished residency, practicing, how has music continued to be an influence in your life today?
J.C. Sue: Yes, so at this point, in getting Tune Rx up and running, I’ve been writing a lot of music, so I still continue to do a fair amount of composing during my free time about various medical concepts. And wherever I am, if I have the chance to go to an informal sort of music jam with other musicians, then I definitely take the opportunity to do so if I’m available for it.
Kevin Pho: All right, you talk about that intersection, like I said, in your KevinMD article “Music as a tool for explaining medical concepts.” Tell us how this article came together, and then for those who didn’t get a chance to read it, tell us about the article itself.
J.C. Sue: Yes, so I wrote the article because I wanted to share with others just the joy of using music as a potential study tool, and also just to address the idea of working smart versus working hard. Because I do believe that if you can work smart then you can be more efficient and also help maintain your well-being and better maintain your quality of life as a result.
I mean, the article definitely did come together as I just started writing, as I have done for many things including my own music. So I find I just start writing something and then I can make edits along the way if I want something to sound a little different. So really a lot of it was just recounting my own experiences.
I mean, as I mentioned toward the beginning of the article, really my foray into medical music writing started kind of as a happy accident. Because by some miracle one day during my first year of medical school I had some extra time after I finished studying for the day, so just for fun I wrote a parody of Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass” to the concept of acid loaders and acid extruders, which was coming up on the next test. And then during the test I was singing the lyrics to myself to get the right answers to test questions.
So from there, writing medical songs became a prominent study technique for me, and I talk about that in the article, as well as how this relatively quickly evolved to me writing other parodies but then also later on writing original music, essentially trying to help spread the joy of this resource that I discovered for myself with other people who might benefit from it.
Kevin Pho: So let’s talk about that happy accident. So you wrote a song to a Meghan Trainor melody, and then while you were doing the test and this topic came up, the information that was in that song format came back to you more readily. Is that correct?
J.C. Sue: Yes, that’s correct.
Kevin Pho: So tell us the process of doing that. So now that you found that this technique worked and you wanted to apply other songs to other medical concepts, what would be your process in creating these songs?
J.C. Sue: Well, so there are a few different steps for this process. One of them is definitely selection of the medical concept. You want something that isn’t going to be too narrow, because you want enough stuff to talk about, but you also don’t want it to be so broad that it won’t fit into one song.
And then also part of that for me is, well, what’s the overall yield of the information in it? If it’s going to be higher yield, for example for board exams or for the clinical setting, then I would be more likely to write a song about it, because that information will be more useful for me down the road. Also if it’s harder to remember, I’m also more likely to select it for a song, because I found for myself that turning the hard concepts into songs can make them easier to understand and remember. So that’s one part of it.
Another part of this is just how well the phrasing of the song can work for medical concepts, because of course certainly in medicine we can have long terms sometimes, or even if you can explain a certain term in more everyday terms, then even then the explanation could be a little long. So that can vary a little bit from song to song.
I mean, if I’m writing a parody, then if I can keep some of the syllables sounding close to what the original lyrics were, that can I think certainly help with recalling it more easily. And if I’m writing an original song, then what I tend to do is I will think of a good melody and then I will tailor lyrics according to that. So in that case, since I have control of both the lyrics and the melody, then I can modify either of them as I need to to fit everything in. So that’s my overall process in a nutshell.
Kevin Pho: Now what proportion of your medical songs would be based on already existing melodies versus melodies that you would have to compose yourself?
J.C. Sue: Most of the songs that I write nowadays are actually original. So as far as the ones that I’m putting on Tune Rx at the moment, I’d say probably about 90 percent or so of them are original. The ones that are parodies that I’m writing nowadays are typically just of public domain tunes, so that way I minimize the potential of copyright problems.
I mean, back before I wrote original music, back in medical school, all the songs that I wrote were to other people’s tunes. But certainly that has changed a lot as I have gotten into writing original music and just seen the utility of that and just how much more I can do with that.
Kevin Pho: So how long would it take to produce one melody?
J.C. Sue: Well, so that can vary a little bit depending on what I have to do outside of my own free time, and also how quickly the inspiration comes to me. But on average I’d say that I could probably write a single medical song over the course of about three to four weeks.
Kevin Pho: And give us an example of the scope of the topics that your medical education songs cover.
J.C. Sue: They can vary actually by song a little bit, partly depending on how the melody comes out, which will partly determine how long the song will be.
I mean, there’s one I wrote called “Diabetes Story” which is actually about five and a half minutes long, but that song actually has a pretty wide scope, because it goes over some common preventive measures for, well, secondary prevention for people who have diabetes, as well as pretty much all the different classes of diabetes medications that are tested on the board exams, minus insulin. So that one has a relatively wide scope.
On the other hand, there’s also a parody of “Jingle Bells” I wrote called “C. Diff Smells,” which talks about just the general evaluation and treatment of Clostridium difficile. So there can be some variation in the scope, but generally it tends to be one particular biochemical process, a particular pathogen, or treatment for a particular disease.
Kevin Pho: And how many topics approximately do you cover? How many songs do you have?
J.C. Sue: Oh well, if we’re just talking about the originals, then it’s easily, I’d say it’s probably at least 30 or so originals now. I mean, if you count all the ones from medical school, then that’s definitely well over 100.
Kevin Pho: And in terms of the feedback that you get from medical students who use your songs during studying, do you get any feedback about how this method of studying compares to, say, flashcards or any other method of studying that medical students typically use?
J.C. Sue: Well, so I have certainly gotten some comments from people saying that, oh, it’s definitely very creative and entertaining, fun to listen to. And at the same time I haven’t gotten a whole lot of feedback overall yet, at least that I’ve heard about, just because Tune Rx is so new that I’m actually still trying to beta test it. So still looking for med students who are interested in that. So still a relatively new thing, just trying to get my songs out there so they can be out there for other people to enjoy and also study from.
Kevin Pho: So in your ideal world, how would you like music to be incorporated in medical education if you were in charge of the medical curriculum?
J.C. Sue: Well, if I was in charge of the medical curriculum, then I would like people to be told that this is a potential resource that you might consider using for augmenting your studying. Now I understand that it won’t necessarily be something for everyone, because no medical studying resource gets to 100 percent of people or works for 100 percent of people. But I would like people to know that it’s out there and readily available, so that way people have that tool if they wish to use it and they find it helps.
Kevin Pho: And are these songs only available in audio format, or is there any accompanying video and charts and figures and diagrams that accompany a song on a YouTube video for instance?
J.C. Sue: Yeah, so actually both. Because along the way of this whole process I figured out how to create slideshow videos. So there’s audio that goes along with a pre-timed slideshow video where there are lyrics on one side of the screen, there are lecture note outlines on the other side, so that way people can better understand what the lyrics are referring to in a poetic format.
So there’s that, and the way I’ve set up Tune Rx is that I do have a page where people, if they’re using the website, can also just purchase MP3s for offline listening if they wish to do that as well.
Kevin Pho: Now for those medical students who may be listening to you on this podcast, what type of learners do you think would be more amenable to learning medical concepts through song? Is there a specific category of medical students or learners where your message would be more resonant to them?
J.C. Sue: Well, certainly auditory learners came to mind, because just my observation from when I was in medical school, maybe things have changed now, but what I observed was that a lot of the resources available for board review or just studying for the medical curriculum in general seem to be largely catered to visual learners, which I think many medical students are.
At the same time, because we get such a wide variety of people in medical schools nowadays, certainly there are a variety of learning styles. So definitely the people who prefer to listen to something and learn better that way, I think could benefit from this. But I also do try to cater to the visual learners through whatever diagrams or outlines I have on my slides.
And also I certainly have the idea of maybe someday making karaoke videos for the more kinesthetic learners. And of course certainly those people could even pick up dance routines or something. Maybe I’ll make some videos for that too. Just thoughts more for the future.
Kevin Pho: So what’s your plans for Tune Rx going forward? Are you going to continue making these songs for years to come?
J.C. Sue: That would be the plan, yes. Because certainly there are many more areas of medicine that I could expand the songs out to as time goes on. So far mostly I’ve focused on physiology and pharmacology, but certainly I could see that expanding more into other areas. And because I also recognize that scientific information is always being discovered, certainly what the medical information we know could change, so there is a chance that at some point I may need to update some of the songs. So I keep that in mind as well.
Kevin Pho: We’re talking to J.C. Sue. He is a family medicine physician. Today’s KevinMD article is “Music as a tool for explaining medical concepts.” J.C., we’ll end with some of your take-home messages that you want to leave with the KevinMD audience.
J.C. Sue: OK, yes. So definitely a few messages that I wanted to get out, I thought of. So one would be that in the process of this journey for myself, I realized, well, studying doesn’t have to be tedious or boring. So that’s definitely something I want to emphasize. There’s no rule that says it has to be.
And another is that, well, small steps can lead to big accomplishments. Because I’ve been writing these songs for a while, even through the busyness of medical school and residency, definitely there were plenty of days when I didn’t have a lot of time to write lyrics or compose notes. So I made a small habit a few years ago of just writing at least one note or maybe one word every day, and that would just take maybe a minute or two. So I do that, and then as a result of that there are some of my songs that have been written very gradually over the course of weeks, or maybe for a couple of them even over months, but they got done because of that habit that I built a few years ago.
And then finally I would just want people to take home the message of work smart and follow your dreams. Because definitely my own imagination here and my own dreams and my inner artist have been very important in me having this medical music journey for myself and being able to study effectively for myself as a result.
Kevin Pho: J.C., thank you so much for sharing your story and insight, and thanks again for coming on the show.
J.C. Sue: And thank you, Kevin, for having me on.
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