Our Medical Advisors
Marvin A. McMillen, M.D., FACS, MACP
Marvin A. McMillen, is a graduate of SUNY Buffalo School of Medicine and Roswell Park Memorial Cancer Institute. He trained in Internal Medicine, General Surgery, and Surgical Critical Care at SUNY Buffalo, the University of Minnesota, and Yale. Dr. McMillen has practiced emergency surgery, trauma and both medical and surgical critical care for 35 years in Brooklyn, Yale, Chicago, Manhattan and the Berkshires. His basic science research and 100 publications/chapters have included bone marrow stem cells, drug effects on the brain in critical illness, mechanisms of immunosuppression, gut and brain hormone effect on immune cells, blood vessel interactions with immune and inflammatory cells in shock and sepsis, and angiogenesis.
Dr. McMillen is currently Chief of Perioperative Care at Berkshire Medical Center and Professor of Surgery at the University of Massachusetts. He first became interested in the bedside use of recorded music, music videos, music therapy, and medically trained musicians after learning about the London based Live Music Now initiative created by Yehudi Menuhin and Ian Stoutzker. He has been actively working with music in medicine for over twenty years.
Joseph J. Schlesinger, M.D.
Dr. Schlesinger is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Division of Critical Care Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. After earning his Bachelor of Arts in Music with a concentration in Jazz Piano Performance from Loyola University in New Orleans, Dr. Schlesinger earned his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He completed residency training in Anesthesiology followed by a fellowship in Critical Care Medicine at Vanderbilt University.
While in training, Dr. Schlesinger became a B.H. Robbins scholar.
Dr. Schlesinger’s research interests include multi-sensory integration, human factors, aural perception, temporal precision, alarm development, patient monitoring, and medical education. This work led to the prestigious 2014 Education Specialty Award from the Society of Critical Care Medicine. Besides his publication history in high-impact scientific journals, Dr. Schlesinger is a patented inventor and has been featured on the podcast “99 percent invisible,” CNN Health, and the New York Times.
Yoanna Skrobik, M.D., FRCP(c), MSc, FCCM
Professor of Medicine
Chair, Lise et Jean Saine critical care chair, Université de Montréal
Clinician Scientist, McGill University
Professor, Queens University
Fellow, American College of Critical Care Medicine
Yoanna Skrobik is an internist and intensivist with a pharmacology degree. She is interested in analgesia, sedation and delirium, how their related preventive and therapeutic interventions relate to cognition, and in targeting outcomes that are meaningful to patients. Her recent research focuses on drug exposure- a potentially modifiable element-in frail individuals.
She co-authored the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s 2013 Pain, Anxiety, and Delirium in Intensive Care Guidelines, the SCCMs 2017 Family-Centered Care in the Neonatal, Pediatric and Adult ICU Guidelines, and vice-chaired the 2018 Pain, Agitation, Delirium, Immobility and Sleep Guidelines. She invited ICU survivors to the 2018 panel and encouraged considering non-pharmacological approaches like music in the guideline recommendations. The SCCM sent her to the Medical Musician Initiative conference in 2018, and she is honoured to now be on the organization’s medical advisory board.