Common Sense Medicine

Cedric Dark, MD, MPH, FACEP is Founder and Executive Editor of Policy Prescriptions. A graduate of Morehouse College, Dr. Dark earned his medical degree from New York University School of Medicine and holds a master’s degree from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. He completed his residency training at George Washington University. Currently, Dr. Dark is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and a Health Policy Scholar in the Center for Medical Ethics & Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. He produces a health policy podcast for the American Academy of Emergency Medicine and a column for ACEP Now.

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Today, we talk with Dr. Gwen Quinn, the Livia Wan M.D. Endowed Chair and Vice-Chair of Research in Obstetrics and Gynecology and Professor in the departments of Population Health and the Center for Medical
Ethics at NYU School of Medicine. She is the chair of the departments promotion and tenure
committee.

Dr. Quinn received her Ph.D. in educational psychology from Florida State
University and did a post-graduate fellowship in public health and has post-graduate
certification in Program Evaluation and Biomedical Ethics. Her research focuses on improving
patient/family/physician communication through understanding the barriers and benefits of
health care use from a mutli- stakeholder perspectives.

Her current research and training efforts are in the areas of : Reproductive Health, Sexuality, and Fertility Preservation, Quality of Life issues in Pediatric, Adolescent & Young Adult and LGBTQ+ Cancer Populations, and Cancer Clinical Trials (including minority barriers to participation); and training researchers to conduct
research with high risk populations.

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Today, we sit down with Dr. Talal Hilal, a physician who is originally from Syria. He completed his medical school training at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) campus in Bahrain in 2012. He applied for residency training as an IMG in 2013.

He did his residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Kentucky, and graduated in 2016. At the time of this interview, he was chief fellow in the Hematology/Oncology fellowship at Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, AZ and graduated in the summer of 2019.

His clinical interests are hematology (specifically lymphoproliferative disorders), application of evidence-based medicine in clinical practice, and pragmatic trial designs.

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In this podcast, Dr. Richard Frankel stops by and we talk about a varied number of sociological factors that physicians have to face - in terms of their training, their eventual job, and other factors outside their job. Dr. Frankel is a professor of medicine and geriatrics at the Indiana School of Medicine, and he researches organizational culture change, face-to-face communication, and the role of technology and its effect on the human dimensions of healthcare, especially empathy. 

In addition to his research interests he has been a medical educator for the past 35 years. He was the co- director of the internal
medicine residency program at Highland Hospital/University of Rochester and also served as co-director of the Program and Fellowship in Advanced Biopsychosocial Medicine. From 2003-2013, he was the statewide director of Indiana University School of Medicine’s professionalism competency and responsible for both curriculum and remediation in this arena.

We talked about his experiences in academia and his interests around medicine, and how I could learn from different perspectives outside of just the clinical aspects of medicine.

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On this episode of Vital Signs, Varun and I talk about the book When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi as well as our personal experiences up close and personal with death and dying.

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My friend Varun and I talk about our journey in the BS/MD Program and how we got to medical school. Enjoy the next episode of Vital Signs!

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A new co-host, Varun, and I talk about our experiences in our medical school program, compassion tests, and medical education. Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments, or concerns!

Articles discussed in this episode:

https://news.aamc.org/medical-education/article/med-school-3-years-future-medical-education/?fbclid=IwAR0YHj28mmIVMoUnK1O7cf15W3ag0b0TJk2cgPRGmcY2wcs5HinirPzttzo

https://khn.org/news/oregon-medical-students-face-tough-test-talking-about-dying/

https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2019/07/our-medical-training-has-been-outsourced.html

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.shreenadkarni.com

Today on the show we are very glad to welcome Dr. Nina Shapiro, ENT specialist and author of Hype!  In our conversation we chat about her book and what inspired a general and popular publication of its kind before getting into some of our guest's experiences and opinions on the medical field at present. We discuss confirmation bias, common health concerns and the attitudes of parents towards health in the modern climate. Dr. Shapiro opens up about e-cigarettes, vaccines, online information and gender bias in medicine too. She shares some of the challenges that come with writing a book, and particularly a medically focused one, why mentorships are so important to young doctors and the troubling advice she offers encounters in her work. We finish off the episode with a few fun questions about wishes, her mission and a question that Dr. Shapiro wants to ask Shree! For all this and more, tune in today!

 

Key Points From This Episode:

 

• Confirmation bias, the influence of Google and the inspiration behind the book.
• Surprising beliefs that are widely held to be true.
• Reformulating the pyramid of health concerns.
• E-cigarettes, JUUL products and the effects that Dr. Shapiro has noted.
• The evolving attitude of parents about their children's wellbeing.
• The unrealistic debate around vaccines and legal and ethical concerns.
• Close-knit communities, the speed of outbreak and the importance of education.
• Lay press, battling fake information and Dr. Shapiro's attitude towards these.
• The most challenging elements of writing the book.
• Medical education and mentorships within any program.
• Shapiro's experience of gender bias in the medical profession.
• The professional advice Dr. Shapiro disagrees with the most.
• Shapiro's mission and what gets her out of bed in the morning.
• The three things Dr. Shapiro would wish from a genie!
• And much more!

 

Tweetables:

 

“I work in healthcare, I work with patients, I work with families, we’re exposed to a lot of information, all of us, not just doctors, all of us on a daily basis.” — @drninashapiro [0:01:04]

 

“I really felt that there was a dire need to write a book that was as evidence based and as non-biased as possible.” — @drninashapiro [0:01:29]

 

“I take care of very elective problems and I take care of severely emergency, life and death problems and everything in between. And no two days are the same.” — @drninashapiro [0:34:56]

 

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

 

Common Sense Medicine — http://commonsensemedic.com/

Hype — https://www.amazon.com/Hype-Doctors-Understanding-Personal-Decisions/dp/1250149304/

Dr. Nina Shapiro — http://drninashapiro.com

Dr. Nina Shapiro on Twitter — https://twitter.com/drninashapiro

Dr. Peter Attia — https://peterattiamd.com/

When Breath Becomes Air — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25899336-when-breath-becomes-air

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25589791-the-spirit-catches-you-when-you-fall-down

How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation — https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/millennials-burnout-generation-debt-work

Digital Minimalism — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40672036-digital-minimalism

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.shreenadkarni.com

On the podcast today, I interview Dr. Joyce Kahng, a dentist practicing in Costa Mesa, California. She teaches classes in dentistry at USC and also owns a private practice called Orange + Magnolia dentistry studio. We open up with how she got interested in dentistry, to be like her mom.    She didn’t really know what she wanted to do with dentistry until she completed school, she explains, like a lot of other people in medicine. She came to the General practice residency to talk to people about routine things (because she did not want to specialize) and focus on building relationships with people.    Building Relationships Through Social Media   This brought her to Instagram. Starting it as a tool to grow her business, she was able to more readily disperse knowledge about dentistry, like how to floss correctly.  She explains that it was more authentic to her to make sure that she was able to talk about the topics that would help people on their journey throughout dentistry. We talk about how memorable moments like patient cases impacted her decisions along the way to becoming a practicing dentist as well.    How Dentistry is Going to Change   Although business practices are changing, Dr. Kahng is optimistic for the future. She believes that she should have had more fun during school (who doesn’t?) but she is optimistic for her future as well. The insurance companies, while they charge more for “elective” procedures, have the ability to change through advocacy in the dental community. 

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Today, I had the great pleasure of talking to Dr. Andrea Tooley. She is a fellow in ophthalmic plastic surgery in New York City. She is active on Instagram with the handle @dr.andreatooley. We were able to talk about how she got interested in ophthalmology, her struggles in medical school, and how she was able to use YouTube, Instagram, and other social media outlets in her professional life as an advocate for the American Academy of Ophthalmology.    Something cool that I learned about Dr. Tooley on the podcast was that she earned her pilot’s license at age 16, and was exposed to ophthalmology through a trip in her senior year with Orbis International, a foundation which flies to underserved nations and carries out eye surgeries on planes.    As she progressed through her education, she was able to find a routine in medical school and hit the ground running as she knew that she wanted to specialize in ophthalmology from the get go.    Finding a Mentor   Throughout her journey, Dr. Tooley found a mentor who was willing to help her focus her passion through doing research while in medical school, and this led to other opportunities which helped her stand out. I also asked her about how she was able to study for USMLE STEP 1 while managing other projects on the side.    She was able to find time by being very active when she learned; she couldn’t just re-read and highlight the books that she had to study with. Also, by writing information on the whiteboard was another method she used to get through a lot of facts in a small amount of time.    Holding Doctors To a Standard    Some bad recommendations that Dr. Tooley hears in the wards is that people give too much resources to study. If you are pulled in too many directions, then you are not able to focus when you are studying. Also, if you try and act like any one else, then you will not succeed - being yourself is more important than living someone else’s life.    Also, getting over challenges is more about introspection and reaching out to the support systems that you have (your family and friends) rather than a specific routine. Each challenge brings adversity, and Dr. Tooley is no stranger to that fact. 

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.shreenadkarni.com