Sight and Sound of Healing : Scott Dunn has wedded diverse talents--as an eye surgeon and a concert pianist--to benefit the underprivileged

The soothing piano music piped into the waiting room of ophthalmologist Scott Dunn’s office is most likely played by the eye doctor himself.

Dunn, 35, is a concert pianist and eye surgeon who works at Valley Hospital Medical Center in Van Nuys.

As a pianist, he has performed throughout the world, writes his own compositions and records his concerts--which are often played over the intercom at his office.

As a doctor, he has written articles and reports for medical journals, and has lectured at universities and medical conventions on surgery techniques.

Now he has wedded these two diverse talents for yet another passion--helping the underprivileged in the Third World get proper eye care. He is giving a piano concert today at Pepperdine University to raise money to send medical supplies to Guatemala and Kenya.

But is he a doctor who happens to play the piano, or a pianist who happens to do eye surgery? He won’t commit.

“I have an active synthesis between the two,” said the doctor, who plays the piano three or four hours a day and often needs only four hours of sleep a night. “If I do either one exclusively, I might drive myself crazy.”

He said his piano playing helps him learn to communicate with people, while doing eye surgery teaches him to be dispassionate, when appropriate. One is a love; the other is a profession. His colleagues find it hard to understand that doctors can have two careers.

The doctor grew up in Eagle Grove, Iowa, where his family had an old piano in the basement. He found a supportive teacher and went 30 miles to take lessons. He started at 7 and, by 12, he was giving regional concerts.

Now he plans concerts that tackle intricate pieces by Schubert, Chopin and Rachmaninoff, all of whom he plans to perform today. It’s a far cry from the “Cowboy Boogie” he played at his first concert.

In the intervening years, he almost gave up the piano.

“Clearly I got the message that being a pianist is not what a serious young man should do with his life,” said Dunn, whose father was a pharmacist.

He went to the University of Iowa and tried to double major in music and medicine. When he switched to music alone, he had a terrible time with competitions.

“I had a bad time with stage fright because I had this overwhelming feeling that it is not something that is OK,” Dunn said. “Medical school was a sure bet.”

After giving up the idea of a career as a pianist, Dunn became an eye doctor and didn’t perform in public for eight years. Composer Leonard Rosenman, who wrote the score to “East of Eden” and other movies, overheard a tape of Dunn performing his own compositions and insisted that the doctor perform again.

“You should be playing concerts and let others enjoy your music,” Rosenman recalled saying. “You should continue to write music.”

Dunn again made his debut as a performer at the Japan America Theater in February, 1991.

Dunn may decide to play an original classical composition at the concert, which could raise $10,000 for a tax-free group he helped form. Dunn’s concerts will be part of a twice-yearly fund-raiser for the Friends of Vision, which sends money, eyedrops, medication and used eyeglasses to Central America and Africa. The group was started by Dr. Michael Colvard, who shares Dunn’s practice.

Dunn plans to accompany Colvard next year to tribal areas in the deep jungles of Africa that are known for cannibalism. Colvard has toured Kenya, donating time to eye care, and Dunn has visited Guatemala, where he has helped people who have been blinded by simple eye ailments such as cataracts.

“The most tragic thing to see are the kids who have problems that could’ve been corrected with simple procedures, but sometimes it’s too late,” Dunn said.

In what little spare time the tall, dark-haired doctor has, he volunteers one day a month to work at the Valley Community Free Clinic in North Hollywood. There, Dunn diagnoses eye ailments for people who have no health insurance.

“Patients of an ophthalmologist tend to be quite anxious and, if you can be soothing and supportive, it puts them at ease,” said Dunn, who credits his calm attitude to his music.

“There’s something so special when you perform live for people; there’s something very spiritual that happens.”

Fluent in German and Spanish, Dunn, a finalist in the 1975 Kosciuzsco Chopin Competition in New York, has traveled the world playing the piano and is planning to tour Europe again within the next year.

For now, Dunn has a happy balance of his two talents. “If you’re trained to be a doctor, you get an inherent satisfaction in being useful. Now, I am helping people with their physical ailments, and I hope I’m contributing aesthetically as well.”

Scott Dunn’s benefit piano concert will be at 2 p.m. today at the Smothers Theater, Pepperdine University, 24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu. Proceeds go to the Friends of Vision Foundation. Tickets are $25 adults, $15 senior citizens and students. Call the theater at (213) 456-4522 or Friends of Vision at (818) 997-1195. Purchases are tax-deductible.