Bordeaux (AFP) – The operating room with its pale lights contrasts with the warm and captivating voice of Aïcha N’Doye covering Whitney Houston. The Bordeaux surgeon, who soothes the patients she operates on, leads a double life as a doctor and singer.
Published on: 12/18/2023 – 08:45
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“Everything happened so quickly, I can’t believe it,” confides, a little tired but always with a smile, the doctor in a white coat, wearing long black braids.
At 34, this gynecological surgeon specializing in oncology releases her first album on Friday with two other colleagues. The trio Les Soignantes reached the semi-final of “France has incredible talent” and dreams of winning this tele-hook on December 22.
In Bordeaux where she was born and raised, Aïcha N’Doye hummed at school, at home, “but no one really took me seriously”. With a father, uncle and grandfather who were doctors and a grandmother who was a midwife, she decided to follow the same path. Without ever giving up music.
“The first time I sang in the operating room, I was an intern. The patient, very agitated and stressed, immediately calmed down and the anesthetist managed to put her to sleep. Since then, I have made it a tool fully in my activity”, tells Dr N’Doye to AFP.
Surgeon Aïcha N’Doye in a waiting room at the Bordeaux Nord polyclinic, December 11, 2023 in Bordeaux © Thibaud MORITZ / AFP
This special bond forged with his patients has long remained confined to the walls of the hospital. Until a video posted in January on social networks by the general director of GBNA Santé, which includes the Bordeaux Nord polyclinic where she works.
It will be shared thousands of times.
“Not folklore”
“In a few days, it went around the world. (…) In a context today where health professions are difficult, I believe that it conveyed a lot of hope and good humor,” says Philippe Cruette, whose support relieves the surgeon.
“At the beginning, some colleagues said ‘She’s very nice but if she wants to sing, let her go outside.’ Then, they realized that I was doing my job well, that it’s not folklore, that there is a therapeutic purpose behind it,” insists Aïcha N’Doye.
With her hand placed on her patient’s stomach, the first notes of I Have Nothing by Whitney Houston fill the operating room. A timeless parenthesis, at the end of which the anesthetist injects his product.
Surgeon Aïcha N’Doye (c) sings for a patient before an operation at the Bordeaux Nord polyclinic, December 11, 2023 in Bordeaux © Thibaud MORITZ / AFP
“We know that when we fall asleep peacefully, waking up is smoother and the body needs much less anesthetic,” explains the surgeon.
Aline Grand Moursel saw this experience as a “moment of grace”. The 60-year-old who underwent a total mastectomy remembers the minutes before the operation.
“I was crying because I was going to lose my breast. Dr. N’Doye took my hand, she looked me in the eyes and sang… I was already elsewhere, totally peaceful,” remembers the Bordeaux retiree, praising an “excellent surgeon, a magnificent singer but above all a woman endowed with great compassion”.
“Peaceful revolution”
“Whether she is tired or behind schedule, Aïcha will always take the time to sing because each patient is unique in her eyes,” says Loïc Manwel, professional nurse and artistic director of Les Soignantes.
When forming the group, he discovered “hundreds” of caregivers who said they did not dare sing to their patients, for fear of reactions from their superiors.
Surgeon Aïcha N’Doye sings for a patient before an operation at the Bordeaux Nord polyclinic, December 11, 2023 in Bordeaux © Thibaud MORITZ / AFP
“The employer does not always know what the patient needs. I want to say to all these doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers: +The landscape of tomorrow’s medical world is in your hands, make this peaceful revolution+”, s he enthuses.
Aïcha N’Doye, for whom singing is her “normality”, did not immediately understand the craze around her.
“Today more and more women want me to operate on them. I believe that beyond the vocal performance, what touches them is knowing that in this ultra-sanitized medical world we can find three minutes to soothe them and do them good,” she believes.
His plans? “Remain a doctor, while continuing to sing!”, says with a burst of laughter the woman who devotes her evenings, weekends and vacations to her new music group.
Profits from sales of the album will be used to finance projects for the well-being of patients but also caregivers, always linked to music and singing.
© 2023 AFP
2023-12-18 08:31:19
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