Abbey Hardy-Fairbanks is an OB/Gyn who often works with expectant moms who use drugs. Future resident MDs: this episode features some of the many things she's learned about meeting patients where they are, practicing medicine without judgement, and understanding what her clients can and cannot accomplish in their circumstances. Approaching patients with an open heart from the first moment, even when their lives are outside society's mainstream or approval, can mean the difference between losing them for good and them coming back to see anyone for more help.

Listener Preston is weighing PharmD or MD school. How can he choose, and how his process of choosing make schools feel better about him?

Brylee didn't get into med school this time around, is facing a tight turnaround for the next application season, and she hasn't even got a compelling gap year job lined up yet. Is she risking another rejection by rushing things?

M4 Mackenzie Walhof and M1s Happy Kumar, Matt Engelken, and Jacob Hansen try to convey their passion for random, made-up gap year. Can they convince a skeptical interviewer?

Nurse RaDonda Vaught faces jail time for an error that killed her patient, and the crew discusses what they learn and know about dealing with medical errors.

While Vaught (convicted later on the day we recorded this episode) made some pretty terrible errors that justifiably ended her career, her employer bears responsibility, too...but so far is getting off without meaningful consequence.

Threatening jail for nurses who make medical errors isn't going to help attract people to the profession, especially when their employers create conditions that lead to errors.

An injury during medical school or residency can temporarily or permanently alter one's career prospects and trajectory. Even serious disabilities don't have to be career-enders. But in many cases, it's up to the injured to counter the ableism that still exists in medicine. Also, what unionizing residents might accomplish, and why it might be needed even in today's graduate medical education paradigm.

Sometimes, you just don't want to take that extra loan money. One option: a part time job. But that is risky--the time you devote to that job could have been spent on studying, and perhaps could decrease your chances at those competitive residency programs. But there are medical students who make the choice to work, and some jobs might even help your chances.

Rushing to med school may be a good idea, but there is a danger of missing experiences that make you a better student and a better doctor. But if you're going to do it...go hard. Nutrition is well covered in the med school curriculum, but there's a lot we don't understand. And Falling off a tall stack of milk crates on purpose has questionable health benefits.

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Music provided by Argofox. License: bit.ly/CCAttribution

DOCTOR VOX – Heatstroke: youtu.be/j1n1zlxzyRE

Catmosphere – Candy-Coloured Sky: youtu.be/AZjYZ8Kjgs8 ;

Hexalyte – Wandering Hours: youtu.be/FOAo2zsYnvA;

The M4s are picking their favorite residency programs in the hopes that they love the next phase of their training. We discuss the factors they're weighing now that interviews are done. And a listener about to start med school wants to know how students study, and how they also have social lives when studying is so intense.

Medical schools' mission is to create doctors that treat patients. In that context, the options provided for trainees who don't see that as their own mission may be limited.

However, those options do exist--should schools acknowledge them? Should schools even promote those options to their students?

And listener Nicole asks what prerequisites she can take at a community college, if any.

* “Cuddles” worries that he can’t be a research MD if he doesn’t get into an allopathic med school due to his low MCAT. But is that really the problem?

* Can osteopaths be academic (research) physicians?

* Dave gives his co-hosts a pop quiz on old time remedies after learning chimps may be practicing folk medicine.

Listener Valerie's pre-med advisor still haunts her years later, despite a stellar recovery from academic disaster.

We got hammered by anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers on our Instagram. Will our response get the same result?

The co-hosts and Dave celebrate the upcoming Valentines Day observance--can we guess what our SOs and parents think of us, Newlywed Game style?