The Cross-Canada Quintet presents variations on music: movements in the keys of H, P and E

Whether it is rock playing in the background during a surgery, cool jazz that wafts from our office computer speakers as we write up our clinical notes, or the soaring of a symphony on the radio that inspires that perfect flourish to an article, music is woven throughout much of our clinical and academic lives. For the five of us, however, music alternates between the background and foreground in our lives as health professions educators. Music balances the working day, illuminates our research, and reconciles the utility of our training with the originality of our practice. We invite you to discover the interplays, dissonances and harmonies inspired by and reflected in this leitmotif. Pull up a chair, sit back, put on one of your own favourite pieces and explore these ideas as we riff and rhapsodise on variations on this theme. Discuss ideas arising from the article at discuss.