What Do You Do to Blow Off Steam?

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

I'm David Kerr, professor of cancer medicine at the University of Oxford. You don't know this, and you wouldn't realize it, you wouldn't have guessed, but I've got rhythm. I play in a rock and roll ceilidh wedding/bar mitzvah band, for hire. For those of you who have never been to Scotland, a ceilidh is when we practice our Scottish traditional country dancing. It's a wonderful occasion — a sort of controlled mayhem, one might say, with lots of dancing and all the rest of it. These bandmates are friends of mine — I've been in the band since university days — and we gather about once a year to do a gig or a concert and just to have a ton of fun. I aspire to be a sort of Scottish Gene Krupa.

For me, beating the drum is a form of escape at the end of a busy, difficult day. During COVID, it's been a release valve to be able to go into my shed, my man shed, where I keep my drum kit and battle it to bits 'til my arms ache, my forearms swell until I look a bit like Popeye, 'til sweat drips from the point of my chin. That's what I do when things get difficult, after a hard clinic, breaking lots of bad news. I'm not someone who is easily stressed, but for me, drumming is a release valve.

In these days when we see a lot of physician burnout, what do you do to escape a little? Is it music? Is it running? Is it swimming? Learning a new language? Playing the banjo? I'd be very interested to learn what it is you do to de-stress, to bring balance back to your life, just for a moment, to lose yourself in some other aspect of life other than medicine, other than the community of patients we serve. Send us your comments and any tips you would like to share.

For the time being, Medscapers, over and out. Thank you for listening.

David J. Kerr, CBE, MD, DSc, is a professor of cancer medicine at the University of Oxford. He is recognized internationally for his work in the research and treatment of colorectal cancer and has founded three university spin-out companies: COBRA Therapeutics, Celleron Therapeutics, and Oxford Cancer Biomarkers. In 2002, he was appointed Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.

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Cite this: David J. Kerr. What Do You Do to Blow Off Steam? - Medscape - Jul 09, 2021.

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