a.j. khaw on the art of listening
the former pediatrician turned musician and choreopoet reflects on grief, reinvention, and what it means to show up as your full self.
last year, adrian khaw and i had our first real conversation about identity. not the kind you recite on a résumé, but the layered, shape-shifting self that continues to grow even when the job title disappears. we talked about what it means to nurture others in ways that aren’t clinical, to carry forward parts of ourselves that exist outside of the systems that trained us.
we both left pediatric telemedicine around the same time. i knew adrian was pivoting, but i didn’t realize just how seismic the shift would be, until i got an email from him this january. he signed off with a small addition that quietly hit me like a gong:
best, a.j. (that is what people call me outside of my former m.d. life)
in hindsight, it wasn’t a change at all. a.j. is who he’s always been. that signature has since become a grounding statement for me. every time i think of it, i feel a sense of purpose click into place, a resonance that only grows as i watch a.j. continue to blossom in his music, choreopoems, and the slow, intentional act of community healing.
a.j. was born in washington state. his parents got engaged in burma before moving to the u.s. via several countries due to visa requirements and eventually reuniting. at five, he started piano lessons. even in college, as he pursued a biology and music double major, he realized this may be his last opportunity to study with his favorite music professors. he chose to drop his biology major in order to accommodate two more music courses.
he became a doctor, did a pediatrics residency, worked as a full-time physician for 18 years, but when people asked what he did for a living, the answer never felt quite right. “sometimes i would say i’m a musician and a pediatrician. it felt like i wasn’t telling them the truth. it felt like i was covering something up,” he explains. “every step of the way, as i’ve been doing medicine, i’ve also been performing, writing, and creating.” there was always a steady, melodic thread playing beneath the louder noise of his life in medicine. music felt like a luxury. he loved it, but it didn’t feel practical. medicine, on the other hand, made sense. it was how he helped people. in recent years he has found ways to heal communities through music. leaving medicine felt like coming out. not in the same way that someone might come out around their sexuality, but with a parallel charge of liberation. but not everyone saw the shift as permanent. “some people think, ‘oh, he’s taking a break,’ or ‘he’s reconsidering.’ but i know i’m not going back. and some of my closest friends—when i told them—they just said, ‘it’s about time. what took you so long?’” he says.
the real catalyst was his mother’s passing in february 2023. she was 73. “that was a huge wake-up call. i realized: i’ll be lucky if i live to that age with my mental and physical capacities intact. what can i do with the 25 or so years i may have left?” he recalls.
that question became a new compass. today, a.j. is the co-creator and musical director of honor and heal, a community-centered project that blends music, movement, and poetry to build empathy between justice-impacted communities and law enforcement. the work is rooted in the choreopoem—a form originated by ntozake shange in the 1970s, most notably through her groundbreaking work when the rainbow is enuf, which redefined the possibilities of theater, poetry, and black feminist expression.
but the process matters just as much as the performance. participants—often young people impacted by policing, law enforcement officers, and community members—come in with no stage experience. by the time they perform, it’s not about being polished. it’s about being present. it’s about trust. a.j. describes the work as a form of collective storytelling. “it often portrays some kind of trauma, but also healing. as one person tells their story, it flows into the next, and you start to see the shared threads. it’s about using artistic form to elevate a collective story,” he says.
“if it’s a painful story—and more often than not, it is—it’s about naming it,” he continues. “you’re saying: this is not something i’m ashamed of. we’re making this pain beautiful. this trauma isn’t something to fear. it’s part of my past, and here it is now.”
the care a.j. once offered at the bedside has essentially expanded. “you can have a powerful moment with a patient, you might talk about something that changes their life,” he says. “but now, i feel like i’m doing that kind of healing on a community scale.”
for a.j., music was never an escape from medicine. it’s a continuation. not through stethoscopes or prescriptions, but through truth-telling. through movement and song and presence. through listening. through being—unapologetically—a.j. and in that, inviting others to do the same.