'Notes of a Neurosurgeon - Doctor by day, piano man by night. Michael Stechison makes music when he's not using his hands for medicine."

Atlanta Journal Constitution - Living Section - August 18, 2008. "He opened at Lawrenceville's Lil' River Grille with a piano medley from his CD "By Myself, Now and Then" before segueing into a popular Billy Joel tune. All night and , if his schedule allows, on many weekends as the surgeon brings the fine-fingered dexterity normally reserved for the operating room to the piano bench. But there's no mention of his day job-just intermittent pitches for his CD available online at www.michaelstechison.com. It's just as well. There probably aren't many here with brain tumors. If there were, Stechison, a neurosurgeon at Gwinnett Medical Center would come highly recommended. "If you play the night before operating, your dexterity is enhanced," he said. "It's an incredible digital warm up." The 52 year old, who jokes he's a mere 25 with the numbers inverted, has been warming up - digitally that is - since he was 5 studying classical piano at the Royal Conservatory in Toronto. Back then, he said, it seemed every home in the city had a piano. Both his parents were lovers of music. His father, Walter, a dentis, had a band and a live radio show until the 1940's. Not only did he sing, he played the guitar and the violin. The elder Stechison passed his love of music on to his youngest son. Instead of kids' play, Michael spent his day honing his musical talent on the piano, the saxophone, the clarinet. He sang in the boys' choir at St. George's College, a private English boys school. To this day, musch of Stechison's life revolves around music, specifically the piano. When he isn't removing tumors from a brain or training for a marathon, he's somewhere tickling the ivories, sometimes with son Mike on guitar and daughter Caroling on drums, or here at the Lil' River Grill, where he's a favorite. He tries to play every day at home, in his hospital office, wherever there is a keyboard. For Stechison, it's aolmost impossible to be without his instrument. He has two grand pianos at his home in Atlanta, including his childhood instrument in the basement. He keeps a keyboard in his office, at his beach house, and sometimes in the back seat of his car. The only time he recalls music taking a back seat in his life is when he enrolled in medical school at the University of Toronto. Besides being focused on his studies, Stechison wasn't playing as well as he would've liked, so he turned to painting and drawing. He got his medical degree in 1981 and, while completing his residency, got a doctor of philosophy in anatomy, a first in the neurosurgery program. After stints on the faculty of Ohio State University and the University of Pittsburgh, Stechison left academia. In 1995 he entered private practice in South Georgia. He said he didn't care much for that part of the state. "I'm a city guy." "Except for brief visits to the beach," said Stechison, who grew up in downtown Toronto, "it's very unhealthy for me to be outside the city." And so in 2004, Stechison returned to his urban roots, moving to Atlanta, where he founded Greater Atlanta Neurosurgery. Now the Brain and Spine Institute at Gwinnett Medical Center, the practice specializes in surgery. Stechison practices at both Gwinnett Medical Center and Emory Crawford Long Hospital. And he performs often, about four times a month. He has played at the 755 Club at Turner Field, the Green Market at Piedmont Park and at Lil' River Grill, where he's been playing for nearly a year. Todd Johnson, who co-owns the restaurant with his brother Bob, tries to book the surgeon at least once a month. "He's a great guy," said Johnson. "We enjoy having him and the crowd he brings." Johnson said that customers find Stechison intriguing because it's unusual to see another side of a doctor. "They love to come watch him play," he said. "He's an extremely talented guy."

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