Singing Nurse Retires After 18 Years of Healing With Music

When Ruth Dennison heard "Dream a Little Dream of Me" floating through her hospital room at UC San Diego's Jacobs Medical Center, her feet started dancing under the covers. The performer wasn't a visiting musician. He was her nurse.

Rod Salaysay has spent 18 years blending bedside care with live performances, turning routine hospital shifts into moments patients never forget. At 65, the Pacific Beach resident announced last week he'll retire at the end of 2026, closing the curtain on a career that redefined what healing can look like.

His musical journey began in 2008, two decades into his nursing career. He started with simple songs at Scripps Memorial Hospital's surgical ICU, then traveled as a nurse with his wife Myrna before landing at Jacobs six years ago. Every 12-hour shift brought new chances to lift spirits with his guitar or ukulele.

The connection runs deeper than entertainment. In 2009, Salaysay cared for Ashley Benedict, a 21-year-old surfer and lifeguard who spent 27 days in a coma after being struck by a car. She had just a 5% chance of survival.

Salaysay sang to her daily, and wrote her a special song called "You Can Make It Back." Though Ashley doesn't remember hearing it while unconscious, she's heard it every year since at her birthday parties. She celebrated another one just last month in Solana Beach.

"He saved all of us," said Ashley's mother Lori, describing how the music sustained their family through the darkest days. Ashley fully credits Salaysay with saving her life, though she knows it took an entire medical team to beat those impossible odds.

Sunny's Take

The gift keeps giving. A patient who survived a two-story fall later gifted Salaysay a ukulele, then called years later to ask if he'd play at his wedding. Another patient's family returns year after year, keeping the connection alive long after discharge papers are signed.

Salaysay's ukulele now carries signatures from patients across the years. A spontaneous Elvis cover posted to TikTok this month earned over 16,000 likes, but most performances happened for audiences of one or two, in quiet rooms where hope felt far away.

The music heals him too. "My body produces endorphins that make me feel good after I play," he said. "They last for a few hours, and I forget all my back pain, I forget my shoulder pain."

After retirement, Salaysay and Myrna plan to build a second home in their native Philippines. But his legacy at Jacobs will echo through every hallway where patients once heard an unexpected melody and forgot, just for a moment, that they were in a hospital at all.