MONTREAL -- As patients at the Montreal Children's Hospital get ready for a tough Christmas, one doctor is trying to make things a little easier by performing music and raising money for the foundation.
Dr. Paul Rossy is a pediatrician by day and a musician after hours.
"I write melodies and I perform in a folk slash indie style, and then I give those melodies to some of Montreal's best jazz musicians and they make arrangements," said Rossy.
He also writes children's books and the proceeds from both his music and his books go to the Children's Hospital Foundation.
"For the past three years he's come up with Christmas songs, he's done concerts, he writes books, he's just an incredibly talented doctor who's also an artist," said Children's Hospital spokesperson Kim Fraser.
The donations to the foundation serve a crucial purpose.
"The money comes to the hospital and there isn't a part of the hospital that isn't touched by those donations," said Fraser.
Stephen Theriault has a six-year-old daughter Sceanne who was diagnosed with stage four liver cancer in July. She, like all of the hospital's patients, will be limited to visits from her parents.
"Sceanne was told that she has something inside of her stomach and that we needed to get what we called little Pac Men to go in and eat them up," he said.
She's in the middle of treatment now after a successful operation and her father says the tough experience has been made easier by a staff that helps people find the bright side.
"I have a little joke that I say sometimes: every time a nurse walks into a room she says 'Oh, that's my favourite nurse,'" said Theriault.
It's a bright side that is aided by the sound of music.
