Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Wally Bartfay.

Hi Dr. Wally, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.

I was always interested in science and music as a young child growing up in Chateauguay, Quebec. Perhaps, I shall start with the science side. I had my own little wet lab in my parents basement and would do experiments with chemicals I managed to collect. In high school, I entered regional science fair competitions and placed first consistently in the Life Sciences division. I had the distinctive pleasure of being chosen to represent Quebec four times in national science fair competitions known as the Canada Wide Science Fair run by the Youth Science Foundation. I was specifically interested in searching for healing properties of plants, so I read various old medical texts and pharmacopias for plant based healing properties. We weren’t allowed to experiment on mice or rats and any vertebrate animals as high school students. So I connected with some professors at McGill University like Dr. Stuart Hill and others who were very supportive of my efforts. They suggested that I use large Brazilian cockroaches to experiment on. My parents were very supportive, even with the idea of having cockroaches in my room being kept in a large glass aquarium.

When I was a teenager, I took several lifeguarding courses and did this over several summers to pay for my college and university education. I became a health care professional and then pursued graduate studies and completed my doctoral degree in 1999 at the Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS) at the University of Toronto. Always working doing clinical practice or teaching to support my graduate studies and be independent. Of course, being awarded various scholarships and academic awards helped out also. Often I would run on 4 or 5 hours sleep per day, but I survived and managed to fulfill my academic goals.

I managed to secure several academic positions over the years and have lived in 5 Canadian provinces to date. I have taught at Red River Community College in Winnipeg, Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, University of Windsor and Ontario Tech University in Oshawa, Ontario. I have held various administrative positions including Associate Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and various directorships also over the years. Director of Research at University of Windsor. Director for graduate program and various undergraduate programs including BHSc, BHAdmin, BAHSc for examples, In addition, I also developed and implemented various new programs. For examples, I started the graduate program at Ontario Tech University for Health Sciences, Bachelors of Health Public Health specialization stream, and Bachelors of Health Administration programs.

Although the majority of my research involved noncommunicable chronic diseases like heart disease, stroke, diabetes and dementia, I also returned to my science fair roots in high school to examine the healing and antioxidant properties of plants. For example, when I lived in Manitoba, I heard stories from First Nations Elders about the healing properties of a purple plant called “willow herb” (Epilobium angustifolium) which grows on the Canadian Prairies and elsewhere. There is currently a growing clinical global concern related to antibiotic resistance. First Nations healers used put this plant on wounds to prevent infections and promote healing.

Consequently, I teamed up with a colleague, Dr. Julia Green-Johnson who is a microbiologist in the Faculty of Science at Ontario Tech University and some of our graduate students, and we sought to validate this traditional healing claim empirically in the lab. We obtained whole plant extract and tested it’s various antibiotic effects on a variety of gram+ and gram- bacteria, and compared them with current antibiotics as controls. What we found was truly amazing. Willow herb was shown to inhibit the growth of a variety of nasty bacteria including Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Micrococcus luteus, and was actually more effective than several current antibiotics prescribed clinically, much to our surprise. The next step is to determine which part of the plant (e.g., roots, leaves, flowers, stem) contains these antibiotic agents of course. These results were published in a scientific peer-reviewed journal and generated a lot of excitement (see link for article -https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1099800410393947)

I’ll jump back now to my love of music and how this has also played a significant role in my life and career as an academic and researcher. When I was 9 or 10 years old, we use to put on Christmas concerts in our local community seniors nursing home located in Chateauguay, Quebec with my sister Kathy and my cousin Irene Bellon. My mother and aunt provided baked good for the seniors and veterans in this home also. It was very heart warming and rewarding to give back to our community and put smiles on people faces, especially during the holiday season. These were my first public performances playing music and singing. Later in college, I would play in various bistros and coffee houses in Montreal with my high school buddy Danny Arseneau and fellow science fair enthusiast for a free meal, tips or just to try to impress some girls in the audience. Unfortunately, Danny passed away in the summer of 1999 due to a tragic accident, but I still have fond memories of playing music with him, hiking in my parents cottage and taking long summer road trips with music blaring off the radio.

My father suffered from a series of strokes and also developed heart failure and dementia. He was totally immobile and required 24 hour care and was admitted, ironically, to the same seniors nursing home that we used to perform Christmas concerts at during my childhood. There are over 100 forms of dementia and my father suffered from vascular dementia, which is the second most common form after Alzheimer’s Disease. Like most patients with advanced dementia, my father suffered from BPSD’s (Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia), which includes depression, agitation, hallucinations and delusions, anxiety and so on. I would often sing him old folk songs that we use to sing around the campfire in our cottage located in the Laurentian mountains in Quebec near Weir. This would be a form of distraction and his agitation or aggressive outbursts would immediately subside. This excited me as a clinical researcher and I wanted to examine the potential of “music as medicine” for patients like my dad suffering from dementia.

When I was Associate Dean in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Ontario Tech University, located in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, I partnered with Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences in Whitby, Ontario to create a “Clinical Demonstration Unit” or CDU. The CDU was created with input from faculty, students, staff and community volunteers to support clinical experiences for our nursing students, graduate students, staff, and do collaborative non-invasive and non-pharmacologically based research. Examples include light therapy to decrease BPSDs and incidences of depression, reminiscent therapy, use of assistance robots and machine learning, and also music therapy of course.

For example, we set up a clinical study to examine the benefits of using music as a non- invasive intervention to decrease BPSDs for geriatric patients with advanced dementia admitted to the CDU. We conducted an exploratory descriptive study using Personalized Music Interventions or PMIs delivered via directional parabolic speakers. We used parabolic directional speakers because some patients experience anxiety or aggression when wearing head phones. Each patient had a personalized playlist of favorite songs selected by family members. Each PMI session was 90 minutes total in duration, separated into 30-minute intervals of pre-intervention, intervention, and post-intervention administered twice weekly for a total of four weeks. The number of BPSD exhibited during each PMI session was assessed. In addition, SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) and CBA (cost-benefit analysis) were undertaken by a colleague of mine in the Faculty of Business and Information Technology – Professor Terry Wu and his graduate student. In sum, our results showed that PMI may offer promise as a low-cost, safe and patient-centred non-pharmacological intervention to prevent and manage the occurrence of BPSD in patients with dementia. Both SWOT and CBA analysis suggest that the PMI had demonstratable clinical, economic and social-personal benefits as well. (see article- https://biomedgrid.com/fulltext/volume9/a-personalized-music-intervention-pmi-to-decrease-bpsds-in-patients-with-dementia.001412.php)

Hence, it was very rewarding to do research related to my love of music and its potential benefits in managing BPSDs in patients with dementia. Music is indeed medicine for the heart, mind and soul.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?

I can’t remember a time I wasn’t doing odd jobs to save-up money. Mowing lawns, shoveling snow in the winter, painting fences, and working in my uncles garage pumping gas, fixing tires and going oil changes on weekends. If you want something in life, it requires dedication and sacrifice. Money is often an obstacle that can be overcome to achieve your goals if your willing to roll-up your sleeves and get a little dirt under your finger nails if need be.

While doing my PhD at the Institute of Medical Sciences at the University of Toronto, I had to sleep on the lab floor several nights per week because I could not afford to pay for 2 rents. My wife Emma was also a PhD student in Epidemiology at Western University in London, Ontario. I would commute to Toronto, about 2.5 hours drive away, and do my clinical and lab based research, sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag. Later, I managed to get an old office that I shared with 3 others at Toronto General Hospital where I could sleep several nights per week while I finished my research. Life requires a lot of sacrifices to fulfill your dreams and obstacles. You just have to slowly climb over each, one at at time and keep moving forward.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?

Although music has always been a part of life growing up and also as an academic and clinical researcher doing research related to “music as medicine”, it has become a second career for myself during my retirement in August of 2024 as an Indie country artist and song writer. I really love playing and writing songs and get great joy to see others react positively to my music. Although I play several instruments like guitar, keyboard, accordion, I openly confess that I’m not a master of any. Nonetheless, my passion for playing and writing music makes up for this I believe. It’s also great to collaborate with other musicians and artists.

It is really trilling to hear your song being played on various radio stations around the world and making the Indie music chart lists also. I have had 2 songs to date (You’re My Beautiful & Little Sunshine Girl) which hit No. 1 on the World Indie Top 100 music chart list and also the Euro Indie Network music chart list, which are collaborations with Stephen Wrench. My newest collaboration is called “Cherry Hill Gal” with Stephen Wrench and it features the late Tom Petty on guitar also. Stephen wrote the instrumental and I wrote the lyrics for this one. As of December 4, 2024, it hit No. 2 on the World Indie Music Top 100 music chart list and No. 2 also on the Euro Indie Network music chart lists. I hope it gets to No. 1 also. This is really exciting to see, especially given I write country music which doesn’t tend to have as much radio airplay globally as pop, hip hop or rap by comparison.

What were you like growing up?

As mentioned earlier, I always had a love of music and science. I loved hiking in the woods at my parents cottage, fishing, swimming in the lake and skiing in the winter months. These are very fond memories that I cherish dearly. I can recall often challenging my teachers with questions they could not answer and making them feel uncomfortable at times. In high school I had a chemistry teacher who really didn’t know much about chemistry to tell you the truth. I would often have to explain concepts on the chalk board to the class myself. If I didn’t become a university professor, I probably would have done into teaching high school science I believe.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sites.google.com/view/wally-bartfay-music/wally-bartfay-music-productions
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wallybartfay/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wally.bartfay.98/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wally-bartfay-a55a8419a/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/search?q=wally%20bartfay&src=typed_query [email protected]
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkmNjpvuQ-UUcINTFXSS9UA
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/wally-bartfay
• Other: https://www.youtube.com/@wallybartfay5102