Jason Kiernan knows the value of music. After studying piano, he developed a taste for bluegrass in his 20s. Now he plays banjo in a six-piece bluegrass band. In addition to picking the banjo, he's an assistant professor in the College of Nursing at Michigan State University.
A few years ago, when he was finishing his doctorate in nursing and looking around for a dissertation project, he noticed something interesting about patients receiving chemotherapy in the infusion clinic: They were, quite often, listening to music on headphones while they received their treatments.
When he asked why they were listening to music rather than streaming a TV show or surfing YouTube, most replied that the Wi-Fi at the hospital wasn't great. It was just easier to listen to music. Still, Kiernan wondered if there might be a benefit to those tunes.
