UVic medical student launches Canada’s first doctors’ orchestra

UVic medical student launches Canada’s first doctors’ orchestra

Published 2:30 pm Monday, July 13, 2026

Andrew Loe, a University of Victoria medical student, is bringing together physicians from across the country to form Canada’s first doctors’ orchestra, an ensemble that aims to ease burnout among health care professionals while giving back to the communities they serve. (Courtesy of Andrew Loe)

Canada will see its first-ever doctors’ orchestra, all thanks to a medical student at the University of Victoria.

Since Andrew Loe began recruitment in March, about 180 doctors have expressed interest, with more than 80 musicians auditioning so far.

The orchestra hopes to make its public debut with a charity concert between Dec. 18 and 20, with proceeds supporting a local health care charity.

For Loe, the creation of the orchestra has a bigger purpose than just engaging in his lifelong passion for music. He said that from his own experience, he is aware of so much burnout in the healthcare community. Getting together with like-minded people and creating music together helped him out of the rut, he said.

“I could not study medicine or anything else, frankly, without being able to have my identity outside of medicine… For my colleagues, that’s the same. They need that other identity, they need that joy from something outside of medicine to stay in such a high-pressure and stressful position that I feel like healthcare usually adopts,” Loe said.

Loe’s love for music started when he joined a fiddle camp in 2007 and 2008, Fiddle Mania. There, he met one of his long-time teachers, Lynnae Dufresne.

Later in life, he met another music teacher, Joanna Hood. She encouraged him to reach out to people in the community and look for others who have similar passions for music and medicine.

Hood is the one who introduced Loe to the World Doctors Orchestra, and how its concertmaster is a dermatologist here in Victoria.

It inspired Loe to join the World Doctors Orchestra, where he found out that most of them played in their own national doctors’ orchestras. When he looked for one to join in Canada, Loe was stunned to learn that such a thing is nonexistent.

“And then when speaking with a few of my colleagues, they also seemed interested in having something like that around. So I just thought, what the heck, let’s see what it takes to get this started.”

He then started reaching out to the founder of the Australian Doctors Orchestra, who guided him to start Canada’s first doctors’ orchestra.

The medical community at the university is excited about the new orchestra, Loe said.

“It’s been really exciting for so much encouragement from the community, especially here in Victoria. Even from just the sign-ups that we’ve gotten, it’s so encouraging to see just how many people are interested in classical music and medicine.”