Memorial employee writes piano tribute to Owosso hospital staff

A man who works the desk on 3 South at Memorial Healthcare sat down at a piano on Sept. 2 and wrote a song for the people he works beside. Two weeks later he had an instrumental piece called "The Gift of Healing." The poem came later, over a lunch break.

Joshua Voorhies is a full-time patient care secretary at the Owosso hospital and works per diem as a medical receptionist in Diagnostic Imaging. He started at Memorial on July 1, 2024. He grew up in Owosso and lives in Chesaning, the hospital said in an interview published Monday on its newsroom page.

Voorhies told Memorial business development coordinator Melissa Neuhaus the song came from watching nurses and patient care technicians on the inpatient floors. "No matter how busy the floors get, they keep pushing through and taking care of patients," he said. He has also been a patient at Memorial himself, and said the nurses and doctors there were "that calm voice in the midst of the storm."

He almost called it "The Memorial Healthcare Concerto," he said, before landing on the current title — because, in his telling, it is not only the clinical staff who keep the hospital running. "From the Medical Receptionists to the doctors and Board of Directors, everyone plays an important role," he said.

The poem was not part of the original plan. Voorhies said he wrote it after presenting the song to Memorial's executive team, then took his lunch break and wrote the verses on the spot. The lines he points to: "When sorrow finds a quiet place / And tears fall like the rain, / A gentle hand, a word of love, / Can ease a heart of pain."

The part of the story that sits underneath the music is a health one. Voorhies said he started playing piano at age four, lost his ability to play in 2019, and tried again in March 2020 after getting his health back on track and having far fewer seizures. He said his playing came back stronger than before. He has performed for nursing home residents, at performing arts centers, and in impromptu sets in Memorial's main lobby at 826 W. King St.

Memorial has been putting its own staff in front of the public regularly this year. The Current has reported on the hospital's monthly employee recognitions — most recently medical assistant Amber Ariss for September — and in August on Dr. David Huff, a Memorial primary care physician who spoke publicly about the transfusions treating his returned blood cancer.

What happens next: Memorial links to Voorhies' music on his YouTube page and to the full poem from the article. The hospital did not say whether the song will be performed publicly, released as a recording, or used in any hospital setting, and did not give a date for any performance.