The Short Coat Podcast

Listener Amanda is like many medical students--anxious and worried. In her case, she wonders if she won't be as prepared for med school as her classmates when she starts in the fall, because they are "ahead" of her due to their experience and former careers. We've got you, Amanda: Aline Sandouk, Hillary O'brien, Erik Kneller, and Sanjeeva Weerasinghe are here to help. Also, which of our hosts are on team Yannie or Laurel? It doesn't matter, because Dave did some sophisticated analysis and discovered something about the morphing audio clip that has the internet arguing again. The netflix series 13 Reasons Why returns for season 2 today as we record this, and Netflix has announced it's response to mental health professionals' concerns with the content. Speaking of mental illness, Blue Cross Blue Shield has released a new study that says diagnoses of major depression are on the rise. A portrait of Henrietta Lacks, the unwitting donor of the amazing HeLa cell line used for just about every kind of study of

Our Short Coat Podcast keyfob giveaway is still happening! Post the show somewhere on the internet where pre-med and med students hang out, and email a screenshot to theshortcoats@gmail.com, and we'll send you one with our thanks! Our own Claire Castaneda won first place in the Carver College of Medicine's Carol A. Bowman Creative Writing Contest for Medical Students, and her piece caught Dave's eyes and heart. She talks with Aline Sandouk, Melissa Chan, and Tony Rosenberg about the dynamics of family strife and the pressure they can exert to follow one career path over another. Meanwhile, Aline expresses her feelings on being left behind by her original classmates as she continues her MD/PhD studies. And considering that most doctors still don't (and mostly, can't) know much about how medical marijuana should be prescribed, Dave subjects his co-hosts to a pop quiz. NYU Langone Medical School lost two of their community to suicide in one week, in the ongoing tragedy of physician and student suicide. Wha

Oh, gosh. It's Kaci McCleary and Amy Young's last show as co-hosts. Irisa Mahaparn and Teneme Konne join them to discuss their impending moves to Colorado and Minnesota. Also, they lament Iowa's new Fetal Heartbeat Bill and what some observers believe will be an associated collapse of OB/Gyn in Iowa should the law go into effect. But life goes on, and Amy--a relatively new parent--talks parenting fails. Luckily for her little Sammy, Dave has her beat. And listener Corey reaches out on Facebook to tell Dave he's wrong. Shocker. Plus, you can get a free SCP keychain/backpack-flair/shot glass-coaster made by Dave...listen to find out how. Meanwhile, Indiana is recommending that it's citizens get vaccinations before traveling to...Kentucky and Michigan? Trump's old doctor finally admits that his former patient really did dictate his note that praised the then-candidate's health. And the Golden State Killer is nabbed by a DNA ancestry website. If you're a future OB, are you concerned about or celebrating

The day-to-day of internship, residency, and an MD career doesn't allow much time to process the effect it's having on the practitioner. Rushing from one patient to the next, putting out the fires even while drinking from the firehose, and being selfless in service to the patients' needs means that one's own stories are buried, neglected. More and more, however, medicine is acknowledging the need for practitioners to examine and tell their stories so that they can learn from them, teach their lessons to others, and show colleagues that they are not alone. In 2015 Dr. Emily Silverman was in her second year of her internal medicine residency at UCSF. She found herself with a little more time following her frenetic intern year, and with her own stories that had gone untold and unexamined. She started to write, first in a blog she called The Nocturnists. Then, in 2016 she organized the first live storytelling session with her colleagues. Now, in 2018, those live sessions--held in theaters with fun music and

Remembering a recent episode in which we spoke briefly of colored test tubes, Adee writes in with a question for Hilary O'Brien, Erik Kneller, Mackenzie Walhof, and Rob Humble--what, if anything, do medical students learn about laboratory science? And we got a lot of feedback on our recent discussion of unwanted sexual attention from patients, all of it pretty good! Which is nice...thank you, listeners! We also see if the co-hosts have the skillz needed to translate patients' chief complaints into...well, something that resembles a chief complaint. The post Reactions, Reagents, and Repose appeared first on The Short Coat Podcast.

Listener Zipadee Doodah (not her actual name) was the victim of unwanted sexual attention from a patient. Because her employer didn't have a policy in place to deal with it, she fought for one. But she wonders, what sort of training do medical students get on dealing with unwanted advances from patients? Kaci McCleary, Erik Kneller, Eric Schnieders, and newbie co-host Cheryl Wang offer their perspectives. Plus we consider a clever approach from a restauranteur who was surprised to learn that her efforts to create a welcoming, inclusive place of business had a harassment problem of its own. How she dealt with it might be a model for medicine. We also heard from Yanis, who's got an MBA/MA and is applying to medical school. But he's worried a lack of science-types to write letters of recommendation letters might hurt his chances. Finally, Paulius responded to our recent episode on test anxiety--specifically, Dave's painful ice cube technique--with a more gentle technique of his own. The post Unwanted Sexual

Short Coat Podcast veteran Keenan Laraway, MD (CCOM '15, Internal Medicine), returns to the microphone to give his insights into one of the most important parts of residency--finding and being a mentor. The post Night Float: Finding Mentors, Being a Mentor appeared first on The Short Coat Podcast.

How do medical students deal with the stress of constant examinations? Dabin Choi, Gabe Conley, Claire Casteneda, and Erik Kneller discuss meditation, sleep, prayer, and eating habits that keep them from letting the fear derail them. The post Tests, Tact, and Turpentine appeared first on The Short Coat Podcast.

Listener Lavender BloodPoison (not their real name) sent us a message saying they were impressed by CCOM's Primary Care residency match statistics. And while many schools that serve states like ours do love primary care, "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics," as the saying goes. How should one interpret match statistics in light of the fact that many who appear to match in primary care will go on to specialize after their first year residency? The post The Truth About “Primary Care” Statistics appeared first on The Short Coat Podcast.

Listener Luis wrote in expressing his anxiety that his med school--which he'll begin attending this fall--doesn't have the prestige or programs to support his desire for a competitive specialty like ophthalmology. If that's the case, he wondered, what can he do to increase his chances of obtaining his dream career? The post Putting the Anxiety Cart Before the Horse appeared first on The Short Coat Podcast.

The Short Coats discuss their perspective on how med school can test a romance, and what role it should play in the selection of a school to attend. The post Should you consider romance when selecting a med school? appeared first on The Short Coat Podcast.

The Short Coats propose some paths forward for non-empathetic med school applicants, as well as outlining some of the less obvious areas empathy comes in handy they might want to think about The post Lack of Empathy: A Med School Dealbreaker? appeared first on The Short Coat Podcast.

One of the things we Short Coats agree on is that the stigma medical students and physicians face when dealing with mental illness must end. We are people, too, and thus are subject to the full range of human maladies. So when listener Kate reached out to theshortcoats@gmail.com to tell us of her University of Michigan classmate Rahael Gupta's JAMA article addressing her own struggles, we could only respond with sympathy and admiration. The post Another Student Fights Mental Illness Stigma appeared first on The Short Coat Podcast.

Can Courtney succeed in med school despite the demands of motherhood? We ask a mom who did it. And, how med students can erase debt fast. The post Med Student Parents, Part 2 | Plan for Debt but Don’t Worry appeared first on The Short Coat Podcast.

In the first of a two-part answer to listener Courtney's question, Dr. Tom McNalley (MD '04) joins the gang to assure her that it is possible to be a parent of three small children while studying medicine. Also, we take personality inventories and compare the results; do we have what it takes to be in medical school? The post How Med Student Parents Make It Happen appeared first on The Short Coat Podcast.

We revisit this weeks' co-hosts fears of moving into the clinical curriculum--were their fears realized? The US's largest health insurance company is sick of their patients' bullshit. Needle exchanges may be coming to Iowa, and the work of our own Sarah Ziegenhorn, a 2nd year medical student here at Iowa and executive director of the Iowa Harm Reduction Coalition was featured on Iowa Public Radio this week. And If you're going to have a robot crawling around inside you, it'd better be cute. The post Tales from the Clinic: from Theory to Practice appeared first on The Short Coat Podcast.

During Human Rights Week at the Carver College of Medicine, we heard some hard truths from national news commentator, human rights activist, and podcaster Angela Rye. In her speech to the College of Medicine, she clued white people in on what black Americans face every day in 2017, and how Martin Luther King, Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech was just the beginning of his activism. Meanwhile, Mackenzie Walhof, Joyce Wahba, Claire Casteneda and Gabe Conley discuss the department of Health and Human Services announcement that it would be forming a department to protect doctors from having their rights infringed by requirements that they provide treatments that they don't agree with because of religion or conscience. Do doctors need that protection? Or do they self-select what they do and don't do by where they practice and what they specialize in? And with the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in the history books, Dave delivers a pop quiz to see if his co-hosts can identify real or fake health-adjacent gadgets. Th

Annie wrote in to theshortcoats@gmail.com to ask Kaci McCleary, Erik Kneller, Gabriel Conley, and Marissa Evers if she should give up her 10-year job as a radiology tech so she'd have time to do research before applying to medical school. As is often the case with these kinds of questions, the answer is no! But maybe yes. In some cases. Later in the show, we say to hell with this brave new world of collaboration-not-competition, and battle to the death! Will neurotoxin triumph over infinite sausage? We discuss the recent Medscape Physician Lifestyle and Happiness Report and find out who will be happier: neurologist Kaci, or urologist Gabe. Also, we find out what they will drive, and how many friends they won't have. A Pennsylvania Democrat introduces The Stable Genius Act (tempting...). And we find out how the weather and the holidays impacts the blood supply and what the Red Cross wants you to do about it (hint: it involves giving blood now). It's coming up on application season! What questions d

The second-year students are moving from the pre-clinical curriculum to the clerkships this week. This transition is exciting--after all, seeing patients is what they've come to medical school to do, and now it's finally happening. Pat Brau, Kylie MIller, Brady Campbell, and Levi Endelman discuss some of the things they've learned in their Transition to Clerkships week, and Dave has some advice for them on how to get the most out of clerkships and how to get good evaluations for their 'dean's letter' that will make them shine for future residency directors. Of course, one thing that is helpful if you're seeing a patient is being able to tell if they're truly sick. That becomes second nature at some point, but even lay people can do it. That skill will come in handy for those in California who subscribe to the idea that raw water is a good idea. Transitions are exciting and tough...what makes changes easy or harder for you? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@g

Listener Arman calls back to thank us for some good advice we gave him on continuing his hobbies and interests outside medical school! Nevertheless, he notes how difficult it often is to take advice, even when we want it, and wonders if we know why? Of course we do, and Levi Endelman, Tony Rosenberg, Mark Moubarek, and Rob Humble are willing to advise him. And Samuel paints doctors with a broad brush when he writes to tell us his worries about the kinds of people who go to medical school and the sorts of things they do when they get those precious letters after their names and the prestige to go with them. The WHO and others are ready to add 'gaming disorder' to the International Classification of Diseases, to the dismay of many experts (and little ol' us). And researchers in India are taking a 2014 internet hoax to its logical conclusion and trying to decide if 'selfitis' (the obsessive taking of selfies) is a real concern, as well as how people use them to prop themselves up. Wanna show us your best du