Tag Archives: brain

Singer, Songwriter, Scientist: Rosanne Cash

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What does Rosanne Cash have to do with science or medicine?

Sure, the American pop, folk, country, and roots rock legend isn’t technically a scientist.  But it was surprising for us to learn that Rosanne Cash has the soul of one within her, with its arms spread comfortably around her musician and poet souls.  When the University of Iowa’s Hancher Auditorium reached out to the College of Medicine to let us know she’d be putting on a concert and might be interested in coming to speak on a panel, we had to dig a little deeper to find out about the connection.

Rosanne was diagnosed in 2007 with Chiari malformation with syringomyelia, a disorder of the skull which puts pressure on the brain and causes the cerebellum to protrude into the spinal canal.  It’s an incredibly painful, debilitating problem that is usually diagnosed in children, not in a woman in her 50s.  Her doctors gave her all sorts of diagnoses (some with a dose of condescension), until she diagnosed herself.  Even then, it took finding the right doctor to believe her to get her on the long journey to recovery.  The lessons of her identity and career-threatening condition are profound.

Then, too, there is Rosanne’s curiosity about music and the brain.  With MD/PhD student Miranda Schene, M1 Alexa Schmitz and neuroscientist Justin Sipla, PhD she was fully on board for an often trippy exploration of how and why we are creatures of rhythm, the “sorcery” our brains use to fabricate meaning from vibrations in the world around us, and what an openness to shared experiences can do for medical students and doctors and their patients.

There are other connections to medicine.  The link between a performer being on stage for an audience and physicians performing a role for their patients are considerable, and the lessons Rosanne has learned about creating a shared experience between performer and audience are applicable to the relationship between doctors and their patients.  But there is also her desire to “keep a beginner’s mind” that every doctor should appreciate–cultivating one’s curiosity and understanding that “insecurity is part of the game” are essential lessons that could keep you from missing something important in patient care.


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Brown Girl, White Coat, ft. Saie Joshi

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Saie Joshi via Instagram

Saie Joshi is a first-year med student at Baylor, but that’s not all she is.  She’s got a beautiful singing voice and a busy schedule advising med school hopefuls from her tight-knit Indian-American community.  And, of course, as she’s an up-and-coming podcaster we were excited to have her on as a guest co-host.  Aline Sandouk, Issac Schwantes, and Rob Humble spoke with Saie about her show Brown Girl White Coat, and about  ZDoggMD’s recent reflection on moral injury among physicians and healthcare providers.

Fittingly, we had a question from listener Jesse about his path forward after a bad first semester lead to a low graduating GPA.  Luckily Saie was on hand to help.


Buy Our Merch and Give At The Same Time

You care about others, or you wouldn’t be into this medicine thing. Our #merchforgood program lets you to give to our charity of the semester and get something for yourself at the same time!

This Week in Medical News

Scientists at Yale have found a way to partially re-start the brains of pigs hours after they were slaughtered, causing ethicists to clutch their inhalers.  The Feds rounded up more than 60 people including doctors and pharmacists in Appalachia charging them with opioid offences and fraud.  And a cure for bubble boy syndrome using HIV has changed the lives of 10 infants barring unknown future side effects.

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Should you consider romance when selecting a med school?

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Med school can test a relationship.

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Photo by Free For Commercial Use (FFC)

Lauren wrote in to ask us to what extent her love life should play a role in her selection of a medical school, and how we thought med school challenges relationships. Gabe Conely, Joyce Wahba, Claire Casteneda, and new host Brendan George discussed their perspective on how med school can affect romantic relationships, and what role it should play in the selection of a school to attend.

And, after reading an article about how blind people use echolocation–and that they were better at it even than previously thought–Dave thought up an experiment to test his co-hosts.  A stupid experiment, but he’s a podcast host not a doctor.

This Week in Medical News

The opioid epidemic isn’t going anywhere…and it’s getting worse despite the hand wringing done around the country about how to arrest it.  And 23andMe has the green light from the FDA to test customers for BRCA mutations.

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How will you deal with a preceptor’s bad behavior?

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Ms. Jones, here’s your female viagra prescription. Now, it has serious side effects, but if it kills you at least you’ll go happy. Photo by dayblakelydonaldson

The Annals of Internal Medicine published an editorial from a medical educator admitting and highlighting the fact that there are objectionable people in medicine, and showing how the hierarchical nature of medicine leads otherwise well-meaning students to play along with racism, sexism, and harassment.   One can argue that no-one should ever play along, but in order to not be taken off guard by those who have control over your life, you must have a plan for bad behavior.  Corbin Weaver and newbies Tony Rosenberg, Nicole Westergaard, and Emily White toss around some ideas.

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Welcome to Cheese Island

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Your laxative awaits! Photo by Skånska Matupplevelser

John Pienta, Aline Sandouk, and Kaci McCleary (Ethan Forsgren joined in later) debate the merits of Iowa’s recently defeated measure that would have allowed PhD psychologists to prescribe psych meds.  Would they be able to deal with co-morbidities? Would an education course be enough to cope with the complexities of psychiatric medications?  Do psych meds function at a level so fundamental to the operation of the human brain that allowing people without a certain basic level of psychiatric education would be too dangerous, or are prescribing algorithms enough? Continue reading Welcome to Cheese Island

Author Sam Kean and the Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons

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sam keanLisa Wehr, John Pienta, and Kaci McCleary, along with producer Jason Lewis, get to interview New York Times Bestselling author Sam Kean. Mr. Kean has written several meticulously researched books that tell the stories of science and scientific advances. His most recent book, The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery.

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The Med Student Humblebrag

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Those things? I’m sure they’re not important….Photo by techbint

This time, Greg Woods, Aline Sandouk, Ethan Craig, Kaci McCleary, and Cole Cheney talk about the medical student humblebrag, as well as the score-comparison conversations that happen after exams, this despite the common reassurance from administrators and professors that these scores aren’t the most important thing about one’s medical school experience.   Continue reading The Med Student Humblebrag