Boston Lit District’s Literary Lunch Break: Lisa Wong

Pediatrician Lisa Wong incorporates music into the daily care of her patients because, as she puts it, “access to the arts is critical to the development of the whole child.” Her self-professed life goal, in fact, is “to promote the re-integration of the creative arts into all aspects of medicine.” She lays it all out in Scales to Scalpels: Doctors Who Practice the Healing Arts of Music and Medicine, commenting that there may come a day when doctors write prescriptions for Bach or Haydn “the way we now write for amoxicillin or Ambien.” She’ll play viola as part of a string trio while she discusses her book, in which she describes phenomena like stroke victims who regain their lost ability to speak by singing.