Using Music to Teach Health Professions Students to Listen Closely and Promote Peace.

Promoting peace with patients requires clinicians to be skilled in helping patients feel safe, respected, and heard. Close listening is a teachable skill set that enables clinicians to focus sensory attention on a patient and to cultivate space for reflection before speaking. While communication skills are taught in health professions education, close listening is rarely formally emphasized as an equally important skill. This article draws on musical arts education methods to suggest strategies for teaching close listening that can be applied to peace promotion in patient care.