The Short Coat (Audio): An Inside Look at Getting Into and Getting Through Medical School

Her snacks were delicious, but you’ll never guess her secret ingredient.

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This Week in Medical News

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The opinions expressed in this feed and podcast are not those of the University of Iowa or the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine; nor do they reflect the views of anyone other than the people who expressed them.  If you have feedback on anything you hear on the show, positive or not, let us know.

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 every kind of disease these days, is hung in the National Portrait Gallery. Do you have a question we can help answer? Do you need advice? We're giving away answers for free (along with SCP key fobs)! Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email [email protected].

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 [email protected], 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. What Maryland doctors could face as the bar for juries to decide medical malpractice is lowered. Is Iowa's US Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee, trying to pressure Supreme Court judges to retire in order to one day secure a Roe v. Wade busting win for pro-life conservatives? Ebola is back, just in time for the Trump administration to dissolve the office responsible for preparing for pandemics.

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 Iowa Republicans' strategy to overturn Roe v. Wade? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email [email protected].

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 a bar-- are playing to sellout crowds. Not only do the shows allow for catharsis, but for community. And because Dr. Silverman isn't ready to allow The University of Iowa to be a satellite venue (and believe us, we asked), we're grateful that The Nocturnists is also a podcast! Each episode feature a piece from the live show, followed by a relaxed, thoughtful discussion between Dr. Silverman and the storyteller. Her email to Dave earlier this spring to tell The Short Coats about The Nocturnists was a wonderful break from the usual pitches for Caribbean med schools and Ivy League pay-to-play programs; and it gave Kylie Miller, Brendan George, Marisa Evers, and Sanjeeva Weerasinghe a great opportunity to discuss what it is The Nocturnists are thinking about.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?