With the the World Doctors Orchestra, Stefan Willich gets to combine his two vocations - music and medicine. Twice a year, it brings together around 100 musically-minded doctors to perform concerts all over the world, from China, the US and Armenia to Germany and South Africa.
Stefan Willich grew up in Stuttgart and began playing violin at the age of six. He began studying music but after two years, switched to medicine and went on to study in Berlin, Munich and New York. In 1995, he was appointed head of the Institute for Social Medicine at the Charité University Medical Center in Berlin. When the center controversially appointed a professor for complementary medicine in 2008, Stefan Willich defended the decision, citing patient satisfaction with treatments such as alternative medicine, including homeopathy and acapuncture. In 2012, he hung up his white coat and returned to his first love, music. For four years, he is serving as rector of the prestigious Hanns Eisler Music School.