This Clerkship Life

This week Nabil and Andrew are joined by fellow queens med students Lewis Forward and Steph Jiang to discuss compassion in medicine. We have a rich conversation ranging from burnout and power dynamics to knowledge translation and the recent hospital protests. We also go on multiple ridiculous tangents and create a jingle for Balzacs coffee?

S3 Episode 6: Surviving Clerkship ft. Daniel Shi & Ken Choi by This Clerkship Life

This episode was recorded during the early days of clerkship and was recovered after a hard-drive failure. Andrew, Carter, and Nabil take some time to reflect on the struggles/frustrations of Clerkship as well as the wisdom that we hope can benefit our junior colleagues.

In this episode we highlight ClerQ Aid, a medical education app created by Matthew Gynn and over 60 medical students from Queen's University. We delve into the details of the app and its inception, translatable lessons/inspirations, and end off with pearls of wisdom related to the Clerkship experience!

This Clerkship Life is back with an exciting new episode.

In this episode called Starting the Conversation, we're joined by our very own Iku Nwosu (Meds '22) to have an open discussion about racism, representation, social change, and where our roles fit as medical students and advocates in this evolving realm. We also dive into the "self-work" that fuels institutional and cultural change.

Note: This was recorded months ago, however, the content is as relevant today as ever.

For those like me that have a sub 5-minute attention span, ive included very general timestamps:

0:00-5:00: Introductions/getting involved in EDI

5:05-17:00 Black medical student ban, starting a new culture at Queen's, doing the inwards work, and recognizing our biases in medicine

17:00-27:00: Role of social media, speaking up, and the nature of advocacy

30:00-38:00: The influence of the media on our perceptions, representation in medical education

38:30-end: Role of medical students in changing the face of EDI, awareness and kindness in advocacy

In our second episode, we were lucky enough to be joined by none other than our new Dean of Health Sciences at Queen's, the wonderful Dr. Jane Philpott. Dr. Philpott has had a storied medical and political career that speaks for itself. She demonstrates the qualities of a great physician, advocate, and leader all while being incredibly down to earth. Dr. Philpott was kind enough to share her wisdom with Carter and Nabil. The rich conversation that follows is a glimpse into what makes her such a wonderful and admirable individual.

As 2020 comes to an end a new chapter of This Clerkship Life begins. In this episode Andrew, Carter, and Nabil discuss the motivation and vision of the season and briefly touch on medical school during the quarantine, wellness and art in medicine, and more!

Tune in next time for a very special guest interview!

This episode marks the first day of residency for the 2020 graduating class and the last episode of the season. After this episode, the show will officially transition to a new group of medical students with new stories to tell. But before we go, we thought it would be meaningful to dedicate this last episode to residency. In the first part, we caught up with (Doctor!) Sabina Freiman, who we first met in the Going Unmatched episode. In part two, we invited the original hosts of the show and now PGY3s, Jon Cluett and Trevor Morey, to catch us up on their lives as residents.

A few things we mentioned in this episode:

1) Medical influencers: healthydebate.ca/opinions/medical-influencers-on-social-media

2) Burnout Syndrome (ICD-11): who.int/mental_health/evidence/burn-out/en/

3) Trevor’s in a metal band called Heartless: hyperurl.co/9a1o8e?fbclid=IwAR38DPFLyphOxTFt3yAvzz3Ay5noEfhpjeAc0nySC2Li2P1Emo48x2X4swA

4) Follow Jon’s favourite orange cat on Instagram @the_cat_named_carrot

If you have a comment for the show or a story of your own to tell, send us an email at [email protected]. Thanks to Harry Chandrakumaran and Lyndsey Gott for helping put the show together.

Today on the show we have two parts. The first is a conversation with the podcast team on Match Day, and then, in the second half, you’ll hear an interview that Lyndsey Gott did with Dr. Brian Goldman way back when she was a CC3. Dr. Goldman (Brian) is an emergency doc, writer, and host of CBC’s White Coat Black Art.

More stuff for you to check out:

1. You can find everything Brian Goldman at cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat

2. Two White Coat Black Art episodes that I recommend:

- Falling Through the Cracks: Greg’s Story cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-75-white-coat-black-art/clip/15548126-falling-through-the-cracks-gregs-story

- Doctor Burnout cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/doctor-burnout-1.4395549

3. Our favourite podcasts:

Harry: Harrison’s Podclass, Lexicon Valley

Lyndsey: Peds Cases, CBC World Report, Pod Save America/The World

Yannay: EM Cases, Where Should We Begin?, The Savage Lovecast

If you have a comment for the show or a story of your own to tell, send us an email at [email protected]. Thanks to Harry Chandrakumaran and Lyndsey Gott.

Meet Sujen, Tyee, Sabina, and Vlad, four medical students from the University of Toronto who went unmatched in 2019. Listen to their stories and hear their advice about the unmatched process. If you have a comment for the show or a story of your own to tell, send us an email at [email protected].

Also, take a look at these:

1. Lauren Vogel wrote an article in 2017 reviewing the status of unmatched medical students in Canada. Check it out here: cmaj.ca/content/189/21/E758

2. Dr. Horton discusses CaRMS interviews and ranking strategies on this CMAJ podcast episode. I bring it up because she specifically comments on the so-called “match and switch” strategy that Sabina mentions at the end of our episode: soundcloud.com/cmajpodcasts/horton-carms-interview

3. Corey Stanton from the University of Ottawa put together a short documentary of the CaRMS process called “The Match”, I recommend checking it out: vimeo.com/222682284

Special thanks to Harry Chandrakumaran, Lyndsey Gott, and Gordon Yao for editing this episode. Thanks for listening.