Docs Who Rock: Surgeons By Day, Musicians By Night

WESTWOOD (CBSLA.com) — Four surgeons in Los Angeles spend their days making people look younger and better. At night, they put away their scalpels, strap on their electric guitars and rock on.

Plastic surgeons Jason Roostaeian, Robert Kang and Phuong Nguyen and oral surgeon Solomon Poyourow met during their residencies at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

"These cases go on for 12, 16, 20 hours. And so there was a lot of time to talk, and so music came up, bands came up," said Kang, who is a facial plastic surgeon at City of Hope and a classically trained pianist.

Roostaeian is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at UCLA. "We started jamming basically, and we kind of clicked," he said.

After discovering they shared interests in rock music, they struck a chord and formed Help the Doctor in 2011. Four years later, the band released its first album "Angeles" on iTunes and Spotify.

The physicians said the name came from an operating room inside joke: A surgeon usually tells the assistants to "help the doctor" when they fail to properly do their jobs.

The group debuted at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. They have also performed at some of the hottest venues in L.A., including The House of Blues, The Viper Room and The Roxy.

Finding time to practice and record can be tough. "I would show up in scrubs straight from work. Half the time, someone is called to the ER. It's not ideal, but we make it work somehow," Roostaeian said.

Patients have given them a round of applause. "If anything, it's more of a connection that we make with our patients," Kang said.

The doctors said there are actually a lot of similarities between performing  surgeries and playing music. "It sort of taps into the same aspect of a brain I think that's involved in surgery because there's something sort of satisfying about being able to play, master something that you can create," Kang added.

The surgeons noted after long hours in the operating room, the best medicine is music. "What made me think of medical school and being a surgeon was that you get to use your hands to create, which is exactly what you're doing with music. That's the common link," Roostaeian said.

Money from the band's concerts go to charities that help children with facial defects to get reconstructive surgeries.