Musical Rounds is a podcast where people with serious illnesses share their life stories, and we transform them into live, improvised soundtracks.

Hosted by cellist and resident physician Melanie Ambler (and her cello Shelby), this series began as a year-long research project while she was a medical student at Stanford University School of Medicine.

The people you will meet in this series are receiving palliative care, a field of medicine focused on comfort and dignity near the end of life. Their stories hold love, loss, and laughter. Their music carries the rest.

Melanie entered these rooms not as a physician but as a musician. As such, she had little to no information as to why this patient was in the hospital — and nor will you. What you will hear is what they wanted to share with you directly.

During bedside sessions in palliative care at three hospitals in the Bay Area, patients share unscripted stories from their lives while Melanie improvises a cello score that moves with them. Each conversation is recorded live, in a single take, in the hospital room.

Seventy-five of the first hundred patients asked for their story to be shared with the world. They wanted to reach people they would never meet. This podcast is our way of honoring that ask.

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Hosted by Melanie Ambler. Original music composed and performed by Shelby the cello. Produced by Grace Carroll and Chase Morano. Audio engineering and mixing by Michael Shofi. Cover art and animations by Janice Tjan. Made possible in partnership with the

With deepest gratitude to the patients and families who entrusted us with their stories.