Tag Archives: Aline Sandouk

Short Coat Podcast

Academic vs. Community MDs: Who Has It Better? Ft. Santa Claus

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Among the many choices med students make is between community medicine and academic medicine.

TL;DR

  • Doctors who practice community medicine make more than academic physicians (sometimes lots more).
  • As it often does, the question of which to choose depends on which aspect of each you can live without.
  • The co-hosts also visit with Santa, because Dave’s been naughty, to answer pop quiz questions on holiday crimes.
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Santa Claus is on hand for this episode to help listener Josh with his dilemma: which life should Josh choose, that of a community physician or an academic physician? As M4 Emma Barr, M1 Matt Engelken, MD/PhD student Aline Sandouk, and M4 Madeline Cusimano see it, there’s lots to consider. For instance, do you want to teach and do research? Do you want to make a lot of money? What kind of patient population do you want to work with?

Plus, Santa gives the co-hosts a pop quiz on weird holiday crimes.

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How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

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Short Coat Podcast

Med School App Mistakes to Crush Under Your Feet Like Worms (Recess Rehash)

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[Our Thanksgiving break involuntarily continues because a couple co-hosts were out sick on recording day. Rude. Anyway, enjoy this rerun!]

Screw these up, and you may not get in!

TL;DR

  • Our expert looks at the mistakes that can keep you from landing your spot in med school
  • Give the admissions committee what it needs to assure them you want this more than anything, and that you’ve done your homework.
  • When is the right time to apply? When YOU are ready. Don’t rush it, because whether you’re successful or not in finishing med school, a bad decision will affect you for many, many years.
Avoid these five med school mistakes!

You’ve got the grades, you’ve got the activities, and you’ve got the drive. You’re ready to apply to med school, right? Not if you haven’t squashed these critical errors in your application. Get these wrong, and you’ll be applying again next year. Get them right, and they can even turn a mediocre applicant into a desirable one.

Our Admissions and Enrollment Coordinator Rachel Ahearn joins MD/PhD students Aline Sandouk and Riley Behan, and M2s Rick Gardner and Sarah Costello to help you smash these problems under your heel.

Also, Rachel helps us answer listener Morgan’s question about post-bacc programs and damage control.

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

Continue reading Med School App Mistakes to Crush Under Your Feet Like Worms (Recess Rehash) →
Short Coat Podcast

Recess Rehash: Life Hacks for Med Students

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Due to the Thanksgiving Holiday, we weren’t in the studio to record a new show last week. Instead, enjoy this rerun!

Med school life hacks are all about maximizing efficiency, minimizing friction.

TL;DR

  • Eliminate unnecessary friction to the completion of a task
  • Paying others to do other life tasks can be helpful
  • Saying no is as important as maximizing efficiency.

Today we explore the things that med students do to maximize their efficiency. These are the small steps they take to eliminate friction to completing chores, focusing attention where it’s needed instead of where your brain wants it to be, and eliminating those tasks that just aren’t that important to them. M4 Mackenzie Walhof, MD/PhD student Aline Sandouk, M2 Nicole Hines, and M2 AJ Chowdhury explore with Dave their own personal life hacks.

Also, Dave ran famous doctors’ photos multiple times through an app that makes caricatures until they were no longer recognizable, then made videos of the progression. How fast can the crew identify them when the video is reversed? Play along at home on our Instagram.

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

Continue reading Recess Rehash: Life Hacks for Med Students →
Short Coat Podcast

Electronic residency Application Service Glitching…Again?

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More tales from Residency Interviews

TL;DR

  • Puzzled by the interviewer’s question? You can fumble around with the answer, or answer a question that wasn’t asked.
  • Did the Electronic Residency Application Service screw some applicants (again)?
  • We get to know this week’s cohosts using interview questions they might actually enjoy answering.

This episode is sponsored by Panacea Financial, a division of Primis, Member FDIC. See how they are helping med students and doctors with better banking built just for them at https://panaceafinancial.com/.

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We’re not going to lie: amid reports that ERAS is glitching yet again, this week’s episode is kind of a bitch fest. If you want to hear about the problems associated with medical education, this is the episode for you. And hey, if you thought that med school was hard simply because there’s a lot of studying, well, this ep will broaden your horizons a bit on that front.

To take the curse off all that crankiness, Dave decided to get to know his co-hosts with some questions that he recommends interviewers ask instead of “What are your strengths and weaknesses?”

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

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Short Coat Podcast

Is Medicine the Squid Game?

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Are there parallels between medicine and Squid Game?

TL;DR

  • The experience of job hunting for a residency position is unlike any other.
  • It’s way easier to donate bone marrow than many think.
  • Dave stuffs the episode with Squid Game references in the hopes that various algorithms love us.

This episode is sponsored by Enso Rings, makers of soft, safe, attractive silicone rings. Listeners get 10% off rings at EnsoRings.com using promo code SHORT!

MD/PhD student Aline Sandouk, M1 Noah Wick, and M4s Madeline Cusimano and Abby Fyfe have their souls crushed this week by Dave’s suggestion that the Netflix smash hit Squid Game has some parallels with medicine and medical education. See, Dave read a listicle by Rebecca Richardson in McSweeny’s comparing the features of the game to academic job-hunting, and it seemed a little…familiar.

But first, the crew takes a look at recent developments in Madeline’s and Abby’s own job hunt, and we learn about bone marrow donation as that’s also something Madeline’s preparing for.

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

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Short Coat Podcast

Married Applicants: What Do Schools Think?

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Applying to med school together might be easier than couples think

TL;DR

  • Married couples applying to a school together are really a bonus for schools, all other factors being equal.
  • We discuss Niki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s testicles. Because that’s a thing we do now.
  • Wiki How has interesting illustrations–can we guess the article?

This episode is sponsored by Enso Rings, makers of soft, safe, attractive silicone rings. Listeners get 10% off rings at EnsoRings.com using promo code SHORT!

Taylor and his wife are going to apply to Ivy League med school Brown University together. But they’re worried that it’s a lot to expect that schools will accept both of them as a package deal. But we think it might not be as difficult for schools to do as Taylor might assume. MD/PhD student Aline Sandouk, M2 Elvire Nguepnang, M1 Noah Wick, and M4 Mackenzie Walhof–along with our admissions director–have some encouraging thoughts for those looking to start their journey as a couple.

Also, we talk about Niki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s testicles, the CDC’s approval of booster shots for Pfizer (and it’s director’s unilateral decision to include frontline workers as eligible), and Dave quizzes the crew to see if they can figure out what the Wiki How article is based on some accompanying illustrations.

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

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Short Coat Podcast

How to Find a Non-Trad Friendly School

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What to look at when shopping for schools to apply to when you aren’t like other students

TL;DR

  • We discuss with a listener how to find a school that is friendly to non-traditional students.
  • Bringing wooly mammoths back to life?
  • Is talking about people who engage in questionable COVID treatments just adding to the problem?

This episode is sponsored by Enso Rings, makers of soft, safe, attractive silicone rings. Listeners get 10% off rings at EnsoRings.com using promo code SHORT!

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Dave invited listener Brenna on the show to ask her question–as a decidedly non-traditional applicant to medical schools, how can she go about finding schools that will be open to her application? And what can she expect from those schools socially–will she be so different from her classmates that she isn’t able to find her people? MD/PhD students Aline Sandouk, Miranda Schene, Riley Behan, and M2 Sarah Costello have the answers!

We also discuss some special news items this week, like the startup that wants to CRISPr up some woolly mammoth/elephant hybrids to roam the tundra, the hospital that wants to use med students to fill in for their nursing shortage, and the people now (allegedly?) sipping betadine to prevent COVID.

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

Continue reading How to Find a Non-Trad Friendly School →
Short Coat Podcast

5 Med School Application Mistakes Everyone Makes, and How to Crush Them Under Your Feet Like Worms

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Screw these up, and you may not get in!

TL;DR

  • Our expert looks at the mistakes that can keep you from landing your spot in med school
  • Give the admissions committee what it needs to assure them you want this more than anything, and that you’ve done your homework.
  • When is the right time to apply? When YOU are ready. Don’t rush it, because whether you’re successful or not in finishing med school, a bad decision will affect you for many, many years.

You’ve got the grades, you’ve got the activities, and you’ve got the drive. You’re ready to apply to medical school, right? Not if you haven’t squashed these critical errors in your application. Get these wrong, and you’ll be applying again next year. Get them right, and they can even turn a mediocre applicant into a desirable one.

Our Admissions and Enrollment Coordinator Rachel Ahearn joins MD/PhD students Aline Sandouk and Riley Behan, and M2s Rick Gardner and Sarah Costello to help you smash these problems under your heel.

Also, Rachel helps us answer listener Morgan’s question about post-bacc programs and damage control.

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

Continue reading 5 Med School Application Mistakes Everyone Makes, and How to Crush Them Under Your Feet Like Worms →
Short Coat Podcast

Ask Your doctor if COVID is Right For You.

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As COVID numbers tick up, we choose to drown our sorrows in French/Korean fusion baked goods.

TL;DR

  • Dave picks his co-hosts’ brains on how they interpret the latest numbers on COVID
  • We eat baked goods that AJ brought us and try to guess what’s in them, and fail because they’re deliciously unlike anything we’ve had before.
  • We play Out of the Loop.

NOTE: this episode was recorded a few weeks back–some of the COVID numbers referred to are out of date, but the discussion is still valid.

Dave’s growing concerned about the recent uptick in COVID numbers, but like most non-epidemiologists, he isn’t quite sure what exactly they mean. So he brings it to the closest people he has to doctors to talk about it with on a Friday afternoon, his medical student co-hosts. MD/PhD student Aline Sandouk, M2 AJ Chowdhury, M2 Nicole Hines, and M2 Sarah Costello help him process.

To help that bitter pill go down, AJ brought some sweet tasty pastries all the way from Shilla Bakery in the Washington DC area. They aren’t a sponsor, we just really enjoyed their Korean/European fusion baked goods! Folks with misophonia, Nicole says sorry for her chewing noises.

And we play a game of Out of the Loop.

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

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Short Coat Podcast

The Coming Physician Exodus: Why Doctors May Leave the Profession Soon

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COVID taught many employees what their employees think of them. Doctors are no different.

TL;DR

  • Most people don’t see themselves as partners in success, but as hired hands. Doctors are employees, too, and have similar issues with their employers!
  • 30% of administrators reported losing physicians during the pandemic. Either an exit from healthcare or a mass shift of physicians from low-engagement jobs to higher engagement positions may have already begun.
  • We discuss what a great job for a doctor might look like.

In this episode future physicians M2 Nicole Hines, and MD/PhD students Miranda Schene, Aline Sandouk and newcomer Riley Behan are on hand to talk about “employee engagement,” the idea that workers–and physicians are workers, remember–feel best utilized and appreciated when they are partners rather than cogs in the success of their employers.

And while many physicians have experienced job dissatisfaction and burnout, COVID seems to have taught some docs that they no longer have to put up with that. As employers of all kinds struggle to bring disengaged workers back to their dissatisfying, low-paying jobs, a white paper from a physician recruiter ominously suggests that doctors are also re-thinking their work as employees.

With that in mind, Dave asks his co-hosts what, for them, might be the features of a job that they could feel engaged with, like a partner in success?

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

Continue reading The Coming Physician Exodus: Why Doctors May Leave the Profession Soon →