An orthopedic surgeon is helping professional musicians receive no-cost treatment for injuries that could impede their careers.
To Equinox member Alton Barron, M.D., competitive athletes and professional musicians aren’t all that different.
Throughout his decades-long career as a shoulder, elbow, and hand surgeon, Dr. Barron has treated countless high school, collegiate, and pro athletes, as well as musicians in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and on Broadway.
Though the artists push their bodies to the limit and suffer overuse and traumatic injuries — just like the tennis stars and golf pros — they often lack the healthcare access their counterparts receive. In turn, musicians may not get the treatment they need, leading to persistent pain and discomfort that ultimately affects their well-being and performance.
But thanks to Dr. Barron’s nonprofit, The Musician Treatment Foundation, musicians don't have to choose between their health and their passion.
Treating Musicians as Athletes
Regardless of the arena they’re playing in, competitive athletes typically have access to adequate healthcare, says Dr. Barron. The MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL, for example, all provide their athletes with insurance that offers medical coverage, according to a 2017 report from Harvard University.
The same can’t be said for musicians. In the U.S., the average musician earns between $20,000 and $25,000 a year, and 61 percent of musicians say their music-related income isn’t enough to pay their living expenses, according to a 2018 survey by the Music Industry Research Association. This low income, combined with the fact it comes from a range of employers, licensors, and gigs, makes it difficult for musicians to have healthcare insurance, per the Future of Music Coalition. In turn, these professionals lack health coverage at nearly three times the rate as the general population, according to the nonprofit.
“Musicians are between a rock and a hard place — they're playing up the storm, touring, sleeping in their vans, and carrying their own amps, so they’re sustaining injuries all the time,” says Dr. Barron. “Yet, they don't have health insurance, so they can't get to specialty care that's going to keep them performing at a tip-top way.”
Their professions and health coverage may appear worlds apart, but musicians suffer the same injuries as athletes. In fact, Dr. Barron says he considers professional musicians to be “submaximal athletes.” “They’re not trying to hit the drums as hard as they can. They're not trying to throw a ball as far as they can or sprint down the quarter mile as fast as they possibly can,” he explains. “But they are doing so many more repetitions than any athlete will ever do.” Tom Brady made 733 pass attempts in the 2022 NFL season, for example, but a violinist may perform 20,000 bow strokes in a single concert, says Dr. Barron.
Being a musician also requires keeping your body in prime condition. Many professional pitchers who have been playing baseball their entire lives have a permanent 20-degree elbow contraction, making them unable to fully straighten their arm, says Dr. Barron. For athletes, this deviation usually isn’t a major concern.
However, “if you can't straighten your elbow all the way out, you cannot play a trombone because you can't get to the lowest notes,” he adds. “If you can't bend your elbow all the way up as far as it will go, you can't play a piccolo or a flute. There are so many instruments that [require] your fingers, elbows, and shoulders to be moving perfectly to be able to play — that's just not the case with many athletes.” In other words, even the smallest injury can impact a musician’s ability to perform.
The Musician Treatment Foundation
Given the repetitive nature of their careers, musicians are likely to suffer overuse injuries, including “trigger finger” (tendinitis in the fingers), tennis elbow, rotator cuff tears, and frozen shoulders, says Dr. Barron. And these injuries don’t take long to develop: In a 2013 survey, 89 percent of students at music academies reported one or more musculoskeletal complaints over the previous twelve months. “Those are young people who have their whole professional life ahead of them,” adds Dr. Barron. When left untreated, a rotator cuff tear can restrict your shoulder function and range of motion, while an untreated case of trigger finger may cause your digit to become permanently stuck in a bent position. As with all other individuals, musicians can also sustain injuries just from everyday activities, he notes; they fall off bicycles, trip over curbs, and slip on icy sidewalks.
Without adequate health insurance, though, receiving care that’s also affordable can be difficult. That’s why Dr. Barron founded the Musician Treatment Foundation in 2017 with the help of musicians and now board members Elvis Costello and Diana Krall. The nonprofit works with 65 surgeons across the country to provide musicians with free and low-cost surgical and nonsurgical care for shoulder, elbow, and hand injuries. “I do not charge them [for services], we can control the cost of the surgery center, and sometimes we get discounts for the anesthesia [for example],” says Dr. Barron. “Typically something that would typically be $25,000 costs about $2,000 to $3,000 to our foundation, and it's the generosity of all of our donors that allows us to do that.”
In just five years, the Foundation has provided more than $2.3 million in free care to hundreds of under- and uninsured professional musicians, says Dr. Barron. To put it in perspective, an out-of-pocket rotator cuff repair can run roughly $20,000, and that doesn’t include the cost of rehab and other hidden fees, he says.
Looking forward, Dr. Barron hopes to provide full orthopedic care — not just upper-limb treatment — through the foundation, as musicians can also suffer back and lower-extremity issues from standing and running around on stage. Also down the line: “We'd like to build much stronger educational programs and start turning out research that can educate people ahead of time, so they can hopefully avoid a lot of these injuries.”