{"id":7955,"date":"2022-10-21T11:14:41","date_gmt":"2022-10-21T15:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/?p=7955"},"modified":"2022-10-26T11:50:31","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T15:50:31","slug":"data-driven-compassion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/issues\/fall-2022\/data-driven-compassion\/","title":{"rendered":"Data-Driven Compassion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nicole O\u2019Malley, Assistant Clinical Professor of Music Therapy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Nicole O\u2019Malley, director of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s music therapy program, holds in her hands a three-ring binder\u2014the mammoth kind that can hold a ream of paper: material evidence of a program (and a philosophy) decades in the development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now in its second year, 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s music therapy program has 12 students\u2014and growing interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Malley is a bit awed by it all. Creating the music therapy program was not something she\u2019d planned or even had interest in\u2014initially. She didn\u2019t want to be a teacher; she was already running a nonprofit, Hands in Harmony, managing her clinical practice, and raising two young children. A few years earlier, she\u2019d written the standards for state laws concerning the certification of music therapy practitioners. She had enough to keep her busy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But consulting on a program for 溏心vlog免费B站 led to an invitation to implement the five-year program in 2019 and then, at the urging of department chair Mark Conley, to teach a class. And it took just the one class for O\u2019Malley to make a startling discovery. \u201cWatching my students grow, seeing those aha! moments\u2014I loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can be compassionate and caring and<\/em> data focused and scientific.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s undergraduate music therapy program, students learn to use therapies that help improve the sensorimotor, cognitive, language, emotional, and\/or social functioning of their clients. It is the only music therapy program in New England to offer on-campus clinical training for students, who complete 1,200 hours of clinical training to prepare for national board certification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Music therapists are in high demand. They work in hospitals, schools, long-term care facilities, and neurorehabilitation centers. They are employed by psychiatric practices and community centers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Malley prizes preparedness and thoughtfulness and holds her students to the rigorous standards she sets for herself as a practitioner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the first five years of my career, I had to spend a lot of time in court advocating for clients. To prepare, I would dig into the literature and make sure my data was solid,\u201d says O\u2019Malley. \u201cI\u2019d create reports and develop standards so high that they couldn\u2019t be disputed in court. I believe we should teach our students how to meet those standards.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u2019Malley also wants her students clear-eyed about the challenges therapists face. When students begin their clinical hours in their sophomore year, it\u2019s an emotional experience. \u201cI tell them, \u2018You\u2019re going to laugh and you\u2019re going to cry.\u2019 In my practice,\u201d she says, \u201cI\u2019ve seen thousands of people; sometimes what they\u2019ve been through is so horrific that you take a piece of it with you forever. A lot of the work I\u2019m doing with the sophomores concerns how to handle challenging situations and how to be strong clinicians in the face of such heavy work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every experience\u2014and emotion\u2014is on-the-job training, says O\u2019Malley. And all contribute to cultivating fortitude, resilience, and self-awareness. \u201cYou need to be able to access feelings and emotions; you have to have deep empathy. You can be compassionate and caring and data-focused and scientific,\u201d O\u2019Malley says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvidence and emotion drive me. That\u2019s the way I teach.\u201d \u2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Marybeth Reilly-McGreen<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Nora Lewis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nicole O\u2019Malley, director of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s music therapy program, on combining empathy with an evidence based discipline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":8232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2022","architecture-why-i-teach"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7955"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8347,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7955\/revisions\/8347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}