Musician plays for patients at Moffitt Cancer Center

TAMPA, Fla. (FOX 13) - Lloyd Goldstein got serious about playing the bass at the age of 20. He later performed before thousands of people with the Florida Orchestra, but then he decided to perform before much smaller audiences. Those performances took place at Tampa's Moffitt Cancer Center.

"I had this urge to come in do some volunteer work, and I only live 10 minutes from the Moffitt Cancer Center, so I came here," Goldstein said.

He began by playing in the lobbies and waiting rooms, and then be became a certified music practitioner with Moffitt's Arts in Medicine Program.

"I fell in love with the work and eventually got the training, and a few years later there was an opening here at Moffitt and I left the Florida Orchestra and was hired here at Moffitt," he said.  

"The arts are a powerful influence on people. On the way they feel. On the way they think about themselves. On the way they process things," Goldstein added. "So, we try to facilitate arts experiences. We allow the art to do what it does naturally, which is move people and touch people."

Goldstein spends about 70% of his days at Moffitt visiting patients.

"You see these incredible reactions. You see people who start out indifferent, or in pain, or distracted, then you see them become focused and relaxed. There breathing will change. Often times their heart rate and blood pressure will change in ways that even the nurses were not able to do," Goldstein said.