"I am grateful that over the years I have been able to pursue my passions both inside and outside of medicine.   Since I was young, I have had a love for music.  Based on my fascination with Jimi Hendrix, I picked up the guitar as a teenager.  I began playing in rock bands in high school and college, and resumed my musical "career" when I was a medical resident at Duke University.

Back then, I was in a rhythm-and-blues band called Blast Crisis, started with other medical residents.  The band played together in bars and clubs around North Carolina for almost 15 years. I finally had to give it up when I became Chief of Nephrology at Duke.

In my spare time now, I still like to play the guitar, mostly old rock songs by the Rolling Stones and others. It is one of those things that I do to relax, get my mind off work and use the other side of my brain."

Prof Thomas Coffman
Dean, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School

Extracted from Duke-NUS's The Insider. Read more about Prof Thomas Coffman's story here

Tags: Dean