[Rod Salaysay getting his guitar from a hospital room]
[Rod Salaysay playing guitar in a hospital room]
Rod Salaysay (interview): “I’m actually a registered nurse at the rapid recovery unit at the Jacobs building, okay. And my main job is to make sure that the patient actually recovers from anesthesia.”
[Rod Salaysay playing music for a patient]
Rod Salaysay (interview): “And I’m equally blessed to be able to do what I do best which is nursing at the bedside because I treat all my patients as my family. And also my passion to incorporate music as a holistic tool to help them get better because we just don’t heal their physical and medical needs, but also the emotional and the spiritual needs of patients.”
[Rod Salaysay singing]
Rod Salaysay (interview): “I always find that music and pain medication works side by side to achieve a really good level of comfort because once they got some pain medication they started to relax and then when you instil some music in between then exactly it’s a different level of comfort that they experience.”
[Rod Salaysay playing guitar]
Richard Hoang (interview): “I was expecting a typical nurse that just comes in and do his or her job. And that’s it. And Rod came in here with a whole different attitude and atmosphere. It kind of stunned me a little bit but it actually helped me not think about the pain but more focused on how to recover.”
[Rod Salaysay playing music for Richard Hoang]
Rod Salaysay (interview): “When you play music and they start to tap their hands, maybe move their foot to the beat and then they kind of adjust their position into the pillow, you know that it’s working because they’re trying to find a position where they can feel more comfortable and let the music sink in. And that for me, including the changes that you see on the monitor about the patient’s heart rate and blood pressure, and the fact that, okay, their breathing is also slowing down, actually those are the physiological signs that tells me that this type of therapy is working.”
[Rod Salaysay playing for Richard Hoang]
[Richard Hoang listening to music]
Richard Hoang (interview): “He is very serious about his job. He’s taking nursing over the next level. And that little music actually inspired me. And it kind of motivates me in a way.”
[Rod Salaysay playing music]
Rod Salaysay (interview): “For the last 16 years that I’ve played music, I’ve probably played for about 2,000 patients already. I’ve been counting on my fingers how many weeks and how many patients a week. About 2,000 patients. That’s a lot.”Rod with Richard Hoang in a hospital room
Rod Salaysay (interview): “I want to encourage them through music and give them hope that regardless of what’s going on through the hospital stay and onwards would be manageable. And it’s just, for me, it’s so self-fulfilling to see patients after a therapy session like this, their outlook is a little bit more different and they’re actually smiling more and actually the mood has always changed for the better.”
[Rod Salaysay laughing]
[Rod Salaysay giving a fist bump to a patient]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.