The Backstory Podcast

In this episode of The Backstory Podcast, the team discusses the paper “I have to resist simply to exist”: Black Physician Trainees’ Experiences of Professional Resistance with lead author Dr. Isaiah Horton. Together they explore professional resistance, anti-Black racism in medical education, and the use of Endarkened Storywork and Black Quilting as innovative research methodologies.

Dr. Horton joins the podcast to share the story behind the paper, including the research process, powerful participant stories, and what he hopes readers take away from the work.

Paper Citation: 

Horton I, Brown K, Ma TL, Wyatt TR. "I have to resist simply to exist": Black Physician Trainees' Experiences of Professional Resistance. Perspect Med Educ. 2025;14(1):208-218. Published 2025 Apr 29. doi:10.5334/pme.1788

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Keywords: Medical Education, MedEd, Health Professions Education, DEI, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion

Gossip is everywhere. We hear it, we share it, and we sometimes learn a lot from it. But what happens when the “T" is being spilled at work?

Drs. Ben Kinnear, Hannah Kakara Anderson, and Justin Bullock are joined by Dr. Michael Chaikof to dive into the surprisingly complicated world of gossip in medical education. Is it just venting and drama, or can gossip actually help us survive training? They unpack how gossip can help us debrief, bond with colleagues, prepare for what’s coming, and decode the hidden curriculum—while also fueling anxiety, shame, hierarchy, and threats to psychological safety.

So is workplace gossip good for us, bad for us, or a little bit of both? Grab the tea and join us.

Paper Citation: 

Chaikof M, Bodley J, Farrugia M, Tannenbaum E, White BAA. A Qualitative Study of Workplace Gossip in the Residency Learning Environment. J Grad Med Educ. 2024;16(6):684-690. doi:10.4300/JGME-D-24-00153.1

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Keywords: Medical Education, MedEd, Health Professions Education, Gossip

What happens when educational interventions designed to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion unintentionally cause harm?

In this episode, the Backstory team is joined by Dr. Tiffany Chambers to discuss her paper, "This Is Not For Me": A Counterstory on BIPOC Experiences of DEI Trainings. Drawing from critical race theory and counterstorytelling, the paper challenges dominant assumptions about DEI programs by centering the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) participants.

Together, the team explores how well-intentioned educational initiatives can inadvertently reproduce the very inequities they seek to address, and why elevating marginalized voices is essential to creating more equitable learning environments. Tune in for a thoughtful conversation on the unintended consequences of DEI training and what these findings mean for the future of medical education.

Paper Citation: 

Chambers T, O'Brien B. "This Is Not For Me": A Counterstory on BIPOC Experiences of DEI Trainings. Teach Learn Med. 2025;37(4):468-479. doi:10.1080/10401334.2025.2471393

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Keywords: Medical Education, MedEd, Health Professions Education, DEI, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion

Time stamps: 

00:00 - Welcome

01:05 - Poem by Langston Hughes': I, Too

01:35 - Personal reflections on identity, shame, and learning

08:17 - Introducing the paper

10:00 - Study methods and key concepts explained

22:27 - Hot takes on DEI programs and program evaluation

25:45 - Interview with Dr. Tiffany Chambers

26:03 - Dr. Chambers' journey and lessons from designing educational spaces

28:50 - The backstory behind the research

31:36 - Whose responsibility is DEI education?

33:50 - Misconceptions about the paper

35:15 - Challenging traditional academic writing

36:08 - Academia, institutional change, and moving beyond DEI

38:20 - Book recommendations

38:52 - Closing remarks

What if we've been asking the wrong question about program evaluation all along? 

In this episode, pediatric neurosurgeon and medical education researcher Dr. Faizal Haji challenges the familiar "Did it work?" mindset and instead explores a more meaningful question: “How and why do educational programs create change?”. 

Together, we unpack why traditional evaluation methods often miss the bigger picture and discuss practical frameworks that embrace the complexity of real-world learning. Whether you're an educator, clinician, researcher, or leader, you'll come away with fresh ways to think about measuring impact, improving programs, and making sense of outcomes that don't fit neatly into a spreadsheet. 

Paper discussed today: 

Haji F, Morin MP, Parker K. Rethinking programme evaluation in health professions education: beyond 'did it work?'. Med Educ. 2013;47(4):342-351. doi:10.1111/medu.12091

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Keywords: Medical Education, MedEd, Program Evaluation, Health Professions Education

Does love have a place in health professions education?

In this episode of The Backstory Podcast, Justin, Hannah, and Ben explore “A Thick Description of Love’s Contours for Health Professions Education,” a thought-provoking paper by Katie Lee Bunting and colleagues. Drawing from philosophy, critical pedagogy, and feminist scholarship, the paper challenges us to consider love not as sentimentality, but as a transformative practice that can shape relationships, learning, and power in healthcare. Tune in for a lively discussion about the people who taught us about non-romantic love, what it might look like to bring love into our work as educators and clinicians, and a few unexpected pop culture detours along the way.

Citation:

Lee Bunting K, Krumeich A, Nimmon L. A thick description of love's contours for health professions education. Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract. Published online February 26, 2026. doi:10.1007/s10459-026-10504-4

Time Stamps:

00:00 - Introductions

04:02 - An introduction to the paper

04:50 - Personal experiences with non-romantic love

07:50 - Methods and results

16:42 - Hot takes

20:38 - Katie Lee Bunting joins The Backstory Podcast

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Keywords: Love, Medical Education, Humanism, Relationships, Critical Theory

What happens when supervisors intentionally allow trainees to fail? And when does that kind of failure become a powerful learning experience, versus something harmful?

In this debut episode of The Backstory Podcast, Drs. Ben Kinnear, Hannah Kakara Anderson, and Justin Bullock explore the Medical Education paper “Trainees’ perceptions of being allowed to fail in clinical training: A sense-making model” by Dr. Jennifer Klasen and colleagues.

Together, they unpack the complicated emotional and educational terrain of failure in clinical training — from growth and resilience, to shame, interpretation, and trust.

They then welcome on the lead author Dr. Jennifer Klasen, surgeon and medical education researcher at the University of Basel, to explore the deeper story behind the study. Dr. Klasen shares how personal experiences shaped the research, how her thinking has evolved since publication, and what educators often misunderstand about failure in clinical training.

Whether you’re a learner, supervisor, or educator, this episode invites you to reconsider how we think about mistakes, supervision, and growth in medicine.

Citation:

Klasen JM, Teunissen PW, Driessen E, Lingard LA. Trainees' perceptions of being allowed to fail in clinical training: A sense-making model. Med Educ. 2023;57(5):430-439. doi:10.1111/medu.14966

Time Stamps:

00:00 - Introductions

03:32 - An introduction to the paper

05:48 - Personal experiences with failure

09:24 - Methods and results

17:06 - Hot takes

18:46 - Dr. Klasen joins The Backstory Podcast

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In this introductory episode of The Backstory Podcast, we share the inspiration behind the show and what you can expect from future episodes. From unpacking impactful research to sitting down with authors, we’ll explore the real stories behind the scholarship—the pivots, challenges, and moments that don’t make it into the final manuscript.

Because in health professions education, there’s always more to the story, its just how far back you are willing to go.

Meet The Backstory Podcast—where the stories behind the scholarship finally get told.

Every publication has a journey: the moments of doubt, the unexpected pivots, the conversations that changed everything, and the questions that refused to let go. Yet in the final manuscript or conference presentation, those human elements are often left out.

In this trailer episode, we introduce the vision behind The Backstory Podcast. In each episode, we’ll explore thought-provoking research in health professions education—and then sit down with the authors to uncover what really happened along the way.