The Short Coat Podcast

For those who have been out of the student game for a while, or who feel they need a little extra time to get acclimated to the fast pace of medical education, there are programs like our Intro to Medical Education at Iowa. Whatever an individual school calls it, these programs can act as a bridge between your life before med school to the rigours of learning medicine. On this episode that Dave forgot to release a while back because he went on vacation, we meet pre-M1s Nicole Lacina, Timothy Morris, and Alec James. They and their teaching assistant, regular co-host Jacob Chrestensen are here to have some fun and describe what it's like to crack the firehose with this program instead of taking it full in the face. Plus, Dave's unreasonable susceptibility to clickbait leads him to make up a new game. Can the co-hosts get him to click on their article with their crazy headlines? Yes. Yes, they can. We Want to Hear From You: Are you starting med school this fall? What did you do to prepare yourself? Call us a

Continuing our recent discussion on the price of healthcare in the United States, on this episode we talk with Dr. Martin Makary. Dr. Makary is a surgeon at Johns Hopkins, a best-selling author, and a health policy expert. Dr. Makary's latest book entitled The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care--and How to Fix It, is due out in September. We were so glad to talk with him, because it's all-too-easy to be jaded about the 'business' of healthcare when one in five Americans are in collections over healthcare debt. But Dr. Makary combines outrage at the market forces that have created a used-car-lot sales environment with optimism about healthcare's future prospects for transparency and fairness. Things are changing, he says! Interestingly, the medical students doing research with him--pouring their hearts, souls, and minds into it--have helped to create that sense of optimism in him. In other words, millennials may be saving American healthcare even as they're killing the napkin and real estate i

Dan Weissmann is a former NPR journalist who was interested in the crazy world of healthcare costs in America. He'd suggested to his former bosses that he start covering people's stories of dealing with their medical care and it's often unpredictably wallet-sucking expenses, reasoning that the subject is one we all can relate to. Plus, he though, it's a damn important topic with political, economic, and personal implications. Unfortunately, it wasn't the story he'd been employed to tell, so he back-burnered the idea. Until one day he decided to leave radio and strike out on his own. As Dan put it to co-hosts Aline Sandouk, Laura Quast, and Dr. John Pienta, suddenly that story was very personal. After all, he didn't have health insurance through an employer anymore, and he found it difficult to even make a decision on what insurance to buy since that industry (and its collaborators in healthcare) makes choosing intentionally difficult by not supplying information we usually rely on to make purchasing choi

When listener Caven wrote in asking why CCOM graduates don't include hardly any specialists and why they all seemed to be going into primary care, Dave was puzzled. While it's true that a state school like ours, serving a rural part of the country, emphasizes primary care, he knew that not 'everyone' goes into primary care. On further questioning, it turns out Caven's info came from the Medical School Application Requirements (MSAR) tool on the AAMC website! What was going on? Dave sought help from his friends in Admissions, and it turns out that MSAR doesn't tell the whole story...and aspiring med students have to dig deeper. Also, Dave asks his co-hosts Matt Wilson and Tony Mai, both rising M4s, to give their advice for those starting clinical rotations. And they help Aline Sandouk and LJ Agostinelli answer some of Yahoo! Answers most probing health questions. This Week in Medical News, there's good news in med school diversity--the number of students underrepresented in medicine is on the rise. A pap

The thing about conspiracies that's hard to combat is that there is sometimes a kernel of truth in them that makes them more believable. Dave found some unfortunate 'facts' about medicine and doctors on a random website , and asked Miranda Schene, Kyle Kinder, Nick Lind, and Dr. John Pienta not to refute them, but to discuss the little nugget of truthiness they're based on. Warning: in the end, we didn't bother to refute them--we figured y'all are learned enough to know why they're truthy-but-not-true! Let us know if we're wrong about that! And Dave asks his co-hosts if they can find the true research title among the truthy garbage titles he made up. Friend of the show Dr. Yolanda Villalvazo found out that Veterans Administration Hospitals have been experimenting with a program for a few years that allows patients to tell their providers what they should know about their lives. And Dave rants about the state of the research poster...but one man thinks he has a solution for those afflicted by the poster se

Cultural competency is a tough thing to teach, but so important. Today's physician (and med students!) encounter patients from wide range of backgrounds, any of which could come into play in a patient-provider interaction. In this episode, Brent asks how med students learn about the nuances that come with treating people of different backgrounds, from ethnicity to gender to religion to disability. Aline Sandouk and Brady Campbell consider the question and offer their experiences. And Brady, who's co-hosting on the eve of leaving CCOM for a year-long Masters in Public Health program at Hopkins, talks about why he's pursuing a whole 'nother degree and why he's decided Hopkins is the right place for that given that we have a lovely Public Health school right next door. A New Jersey pastor and a British clairvoyant are under investigation for promoting the use of 'miracle mineral solution' as a cure for malaria in Uganda. The WHO has removed 'gender identity disorder' from the International Classification o

We’re clearing out the backlog of listener questions–thank you listeners for so many fun ideas to talk about! Cailin had her med school dreams ‘crushed’ in college when the science prereqs turned out to be too intense. She’s now considering an MPH, but she hasn’t entirely given up on becoming an MD. Aline Sandouk, Irisa Mahaparn, Levi Endelman, and Dr. John Pienta are on board to say it’s not really a problem, Cailin…as long as you can be realistic about the timeline. And Melvin Piebags (not his real name) sent in a series of questions: how do we cope with failure? Is anatomy lab a grim place to be? How do we cope with difficult patients and colleagues? We're answering them all on this episode. Do you like our answers? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com. The post Failure is an Option…When You Learn From It. appeared first on The Short Coat Podcast.

Admissions counselor Megan Kosovski joins Aline Sandouk, Emma Barr, Nick Lind, and Hannah Van Ert for this show, because we had a listener question from a Canadian listener not-named “Molson.” What’s it like, Molson wanted to know, for a Canadian to apply to medical school in the US, which he’s considering doing since Canadian schools are … Continue reading The Laws that are Shrinking the Telomeres of OB/Gyn Residents → The post The Laws that are Shrinking the Telomeres of OB/Gyn Residents appeared first on The Short Coat Podcast.

[Once again, our charitable mission is supported in this episode by CommonBond.  Thank you, CommonBond!!!] Former listener Cash commented on Facebook that he doesn’t listen any more because of our political comments.  So on today’s show, Aline Sandouk, Rob Humble, Irisa Mahaparn, and Admissions Counselor Kate McKenzie help Dave process Cash’s feedback.  Should medical students, physicians, … Continue reading In 2019, Medicine Is Political. → The post In 2019, Medicine Is Political. appeared first on The Short Coat Podcast.

Our charitable mission is supported in this episode by CommonBond.  Be sure to pay them a visit to learn more about their new medical school loan, and tell ’em we sent you! Emma Barr, Miranda Schene, Allison Klimesh, and new co-host Jenna Mullins are all first-years at the Carver College of Medicine.  As our co-hosts this … Continue reading Marcia’s Measley Message Makes Mistaken Moms Mad → The post Marcia’s Measley Message Makes Mistaken Moms Mad appeared first on The Short Coat Podcast.

Our charitable mission is supported in this episode by CommonBond.co/scp. Be sure to pay them a visit to learn more about their new medical school loan, and tell 'em we sent you! Admissions counselor Megan Kosovski joins the fun to help LJ Agostinelli, Aline Sandouk, and new co-host Armin Avdic answer some listener questions. Claire, for instance, wants to know if she needs to quit her job as a radiation tech to fulfill pre-med requirements like shadowing and volunteering. And Elizabeth wants to know what colleges typically do when personal difficulties arise between one's peers and mentors. Plus, Dave satisfies his pretensions to be a medical educator by giving the crew a pop quiz. Can they discern which strange research project is the actual strange research project and not one Dave made up? The AAMC offers insight into a 'new' trend in medical education: the three-year fast-track MD degree program. It's been tried before in times of shortages...is the time right to roll it out again to address physi

Saie Joshi is a first-year med student at Baylor, but that's not all she is. She's got a beautiful singing voice and a busy schedule advising med school hopefuls from her tight-knit Indian-American community. And, of course, as she's an up-and-coming podcaster we were excited to have her on as a guest co-host. Aline Sandouk, Issac Schwantes, and Rob Humble spoke with Saie about her show Brown Girl White Coat, and about ZdoggMD's recent reflection on moral injury among physicians and healthcare providers. Fittingly, we had a question from listener Jesse about his path forward after a bad first semester lead to a low graduating GPA. Luckily Saie was on hand to help. Scientists at Yale have found a way to partially re-start the brains of pigs hours after they were slaughtered, causing ethicists to clutch their inhalers. The Feds rounded up more than 60 people including doctors and pharmacists in Appalachia charging them with opioid offences and fraud. And a cure for bubble boy syndrome using HIV has chang

This week, with help from LJ Agostinelli, Irisa Mahaparn, and new co-host Fili Bogdanic, Dave offers listener Karstan some advice for med students (and others) who want to start a podcast. It's a worthwhile activity, without question, for discovering and understanding the field you're growing into, provided you can find the time! Listener Coleman writes in to find out what kind of plan we'd suggest having for visiting medical schools. Dave has ideas...but to his surprise his co-hosts weren't even sure pre-interview visits were necessary! Vive la difference! And we once again plumb the depths of Yahoo! Answers for some real-life medical questions, the excuse Dave always gives for doing this to his co-hosts. To Dave's relief, scientists have found that declines in working memory can be temporarily reversed using non-invasive transcranial alternating-current stimulation, but to his eternal dismay, his co-hosts always...uh, the always...wait, what was I writing about? What would you do to increase your workin

The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene is a sprawling organization, and for good reason. As CEO Karen Goraleski says, it's a big tent. And with all the disciplines needed to fight emerging infectious diseases like Leishmaniasis and other neglected tropical diseases, from veterinary medicine to ecology to entomology to logistics--it's no wonder. With University of Iowa College of Public Health epidemiology student Kurayi Mahachi, this bonus episode explores the job of eliminating the world's most difficult to treat diseases--infectious or otherwise--and why Americans must not shrug it off as someone else's problem but join the fight. Also, premedicine and med students take note: TropMed is the ASTMH's yearly conference, and it sounds very friendly and is a ridiculous bargain for those looking to explore this fascinating, world-saving effort as a career. This November, consider joining them in Maryland, just 10 miles from Washington, DC. We offer free advice! Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytim

We're devoting this episode to the perils of love between med students and their non-medical partners. Despite the clickbait title (don't hate the player, hate the game), it isn't destined to end badly! It just takes lots and lots of patience, communication, and sacrifice, not to mention a plan. Kelsey Adler, Madeline Slater, Terry Hayes, and new co-host Chris Schanbacher--all married or in committed relationships with people who aren't medical learners--are ready to offer an anonymous listener advice on keeping love alive with her soon-to-be med student. Plus, we talk about how med students socialize, how "their persons" can join in some of the more fun bits, and what changes significant others can expect to change about their relationships. To cap off their hard-earned words of wisdom, Dave decided to see how close his co-hosts and their "persons" really are, with a bit of fun we're calling The NewlyMed Game. Will each couples' answers to Dave's questions agree? Will their loving relationships dissolv

Dr. Marley Doyle is a reproductive psychiatrist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. She's also "legally blind", with 20/400 vision. She struggled through medical school just like all med students, but with that additional complication. She made it, however, and her discussion with Aditi Patel and Irisa Mahaparn gives some clues as to why. First, her disability was invisible which made it easy for people to assume that she wasn't disabled. And second, she was naive to the fact that she could ask for help. In other words, she stumbled through it all and came out the other side without having been a "burden" for her school. Years later, she acknowledges that she could have asked for more help. We also discuss the technical standards that most schools have in place to define what a student physician should be able to do physically, intellectually, and emotionally to succeed in school. These standards, however, often seem to be written with a stereotypical disabled person in mind, one who cannot p

If you got only rejection letters this application season, you might be thinking your dreams of attending med school are dead. Well, pick yourself up off the ground, soldier, it's not over yet because you can apply again. But don't go throwing good money and time away by reapplying without taking a close, honest look at what your application was missing. Amy A'Hearn, our admissions assistant director, visited to discuss what you should think about when re-evaluating your competitiveness, with the help of Aline Sandouk and Irisa Mahapan. Don't give up...find out what Amy's top recommendations are, and get your dream back on track! Match Week was great for us here at UI as our students did better than the national average for finding a job after med school. But all was not perfect this year, as during the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP), the servers crashed denying unmatched residency programs and applicants critical time to do the same. In the end, it all worked out...but it was a stress

Think of an inventor. What comes to mind? The quirky lone genius, coming up with a blockbuster device that will save the world? The Avengers' Tony Stark in a cave throwing together a functional exosuit from scrap metal? Back to the Future's Doc Emmet Brown crying "1.21 jigawatts?!" and then immediately coming up with the perfect solution? Or is it a person like neurosurgeon Matthew Howard, toiling away year after year alongside a team of trusted experts, all working together to take an idea--slowly--from problem to concept to prototypes to product to FDA approval to market to patient? Dr. Howard was recently named the University of Iowa's first ever National Academy of Inventors fellow, with 34 patents in his portfolio, so we wanted to take a look at yet another amazing aspect of medicine: the people who define and then create solutions that make the surgical world go 'round. Some of his inventions succeed--including a way to guide catheters to their destinations using magnetic fields--while others --li

Listener Zachary wrote to theshortcoats@gmail.com to ask whether it's useful for students to join medical associations and societies such as the AMA, ACOG, or AAP. Co-hosts Aline Sandouk, Laura Quast, Hillary O'Brien, and newbie Sophie Williams-Perez offer some things they find useful about their memberships, including staying informed about political positions and the latest research in their fields, as well as for understanding what it means to be a physician. Listener Oscar about had a heart attack when he read how much money the Carver College of Medicine thinks a first-semester student should budget for additional expenses (aside from tuition and living expenses). So we asked Financial Aid Counselor Chris Roling to help, and it turns out that this area of the med student budget is real squishy. Plus, Dave has some mouth spreaders to use up, so he makes his co-hosts deliver made-up diagnoses to fictitious patients with them. Because that's educational. A BMJ article got us talking about whether or no

As CCOM's second-look day (which we call Get Acquainted Day) approaches, Aline Sandouk, LJ Agostinelli, Miranda Schene, and Danial Syed discuss the benefits--to both the student and the school--of taking a second look at the schools they've been admitted to. And listener Caven wants us to talk about our fantasy gap years. Can our co-hosts articulate the benefits of gap year jobs that Dave made up for them? Spoiler--they sure can. UC Berkeley biologists have found a way to genetically engineer brewers yeast so that they pump out dank medicines. Texas Republican state representative Bill Zedler has some pointless thoughts about why vaccines aren't needed in the US. And we discuss what Click and Clack, The Tappet Brothers have to offer med students. If you could do anything you want--and you can--what would you do during your gap year? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com. Do all three! The post Second Looks and Fantasy Gap Years appeared first on The