Researching the acoustics of clinical care

From the buzz of clinic equipment to the sighs and silences, one UCalgary researcher is exploring the often-overlooked sounds that shape the daily experiences of family physicians and their patients. 

In an essay,The soundtrack of a clinic day, published in the Annals of Family Medicine, Dr. Martina Ann Kelly, MBBCh, PhD, CCFP, reflects on the ambient sounds of a clinic, complemented by a unique audio composition, created in collaboration with Dr. Gerard Gormley, MD, of Queen’s University Belfast and Mattea Nixon, a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology student at UCalgary.

“We’re trained to listen inside the body—a lot of my time is spent listening to hearts and lungs—but I started to become aware of the sounds outside the room and how I can consciously and unconsciously filter them,” says Kelly. “It made me a little bit more aware of what my patients might be hearing and what might be distressing to them.”

A family physician and a professor at the Cumming School of Medicine,  Kelly is exploring acoustemology within clinical practice; how the everyday sounds and rhythms shape the experiences and interactions of healthcare professionals and patients.

“There are a lot of questions we can ask about how our sensory experience can subtly help us work together,” says Kelly. “A lot of times, particularly in emergency situations, we don’t actually talk. Much of that urgency is conveyed through non-verbal communication.”

Deepening an understanding of how auditory cues influence care 

Ultimately, Kelly seeks to deepen our understanding of how auditory cues influence clinical decision-making and collaborative care, while sparking meaningful conversations among patients, clinicians, and students about how to create more supportive and intentional soundscapes within healthcare settings. 

“It’s not just listening to the sound, it’s listening to the silences that surround sound,” she says. “How is sound broken up, what happens in the silences in between? It’s sound and silence and how everything comes together. Particularly in our clinics.”

Intertwining medicine and the social sciences, she will advance the research through a collaborative, transdisciplinary approach, working alongside Dr. Ariel Ducey, PhD, professor in the in the Faculty of Arts, and Dr. Pratim Sengupta, PhD, professor in the Werklund School of Education.

Watch to discover how the ambient sounds of a clinic can influence the experience of medicine. 

Soundtrack of a Clinic