Evanston Now Participants say it helps relieve stress during the pandemic. Doctors are skilled with instruments. Scalpel. Clamp. French horn. French horn? That’s right, and other instruments, musical instruments, as well. Northwestern is one of about a dozen universities nationwide with medical orchestras: med students, doctors, researchers, and alumni, all connected to both the healing arts and the performing arts. Bettina Cheung, an MD/PhD student at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, and a French horn players since childhood, helped form the NU medical orchestra in early 2018. “I didn’t know what to expect,” Cheung says. What began with a dozen or so medical musicians has grown to more than fifty. “It’s bigger than we ever thought it would be.”