Tag Archives: diversity

Recess Rehash: When Life Is Getting In the Way of Med School: the Value of the Tactical Retreat.

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Save Your Resources to Fight Another Day

TL;DR

  • Medical school is all-consuming, but sometimes you need to take time to deal with the slings and arrows of life.
  • Don’t be afraid that you’ll jeopardize your career by taking a leave during medical school. Better to do it before your situation causes harm to your test scores or grades.
  • A Brown University study finds that schools are failing in their diversity goals for admitting URMs.

We’re on a holiday break, but we’ll be back next week. Until then, enjoy this rerun.

Poking around on Reddit’s r/medschool, Dave found a rather desperate message from an M3 who’s life is collapsing around him–death, marriage troubles, family illnesses, and all at the same time. so much so that Dave fears their progress might suffer. Is it time for what a military commander might call a “tactical retreat?” Note: Dave isn’t really sure of the technical definition of a tactical retreat, but let’s just say it’s about stepping back and conserving your resources until the situation becomes more favorable to your goals. It’s a metaphor, go with it.

And co-hosts Aline Sandouk (MD/PhD), Nicole Hines (M1), AJ Chowdhury (M1), and Miranda Schene (MD/PhD) discuss the disappointing news that medical schools have made negative progress in attaining diversity goals for students underrepresented in medicine, despite years of effort.

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: When Life Is Getting In the Way of Med School: the Value of the Tactical Retreat.

HAVING BABIES IN MED SCHOOL, PT. 2: HOW DO SCHOOLS SUPPORT PARENTS?

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Is it enough to deal with issues on a case-by-case basis, or do schools need to do better?

TL;DR

  • We share more stories from our med student parents.
  • What the research says about how medical schools are supporting parents and pregnant students in medical school.
  • How should med schools support student parents and pregnant students–can schools do better?

Physician training comes smack in the middle of prime parenting years. Yet the intensity and time commitment required to study medicine doesn’t make the decision to have kids while in school or residency–or to go into medicine when you already have kids-seem viable.

Of course, parents do it all the time, so CCOM Dad and M3 Nick Lind is back to host another in his series on medical school parenting with some other mommies and daddies. M1 Katie Higham-Kessler, M2s Jessica De Haan andSally Heaberlin, and M3 Zach Tully discuss what schools are doing to support their students who are considering or having children, and what they can do better.

Jessica also clues us in on the body of research into this important issue. There seems to be a lack of robust research on parenting in medical school, with most such studies focusing on residency–a very different situation. Perhaps the concept of the “traditional” medical student (who is age 22 to 26) has obscured the needs of the non-traditional student who is older and wants to start or has a family.

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 HAVING BABIES IN MED SCHOOL, PT. 2: HOW DO SCHOOLS SUPPORT PARENTS?

When Life Is Getting In the Way of Med School: the Value of the Tactical Retreat.

Share

Save Your Resources to Fight Another Day

TL;DR

  • Medical school is all-consuming, but sometimes you need to take time to deal with the slings and arrows of life.
  • Don’t be afraid that you’ll jeopardize your career by taking a leave during medical school. Better to do it before your situation causes harm to your test scores or grades.
  • A Brown University study finds that schools are failing in their diversity goals for admitting URMs.

Poking around on Reddit’s r/medschool, Dave found a rather desperate message from an M3 who’s life is collapsing around him–death, marriage troubles, family illnesses, and all at the same time. so much so that Dave fears their progress might suffer. Is it time for what a military commander might call a “tactical retreat?” Note: Dave isn’t really sure of the technical definition of a tactical retreat, but let’s just say it’s about stepping back and conserving your resources until the situation becomes more favorable to your goals. It’s a metaphor, go with it.

And co-hosts Aline Sandouk (MD/PhD), Nicole Hines (M1), AJ Chowdhury (M1), and Miranda Schene (MD/PhD) discuss the disappointing news that medical schools have made negative progress in attaining diversity goals for students underrepresented in medicine, despite years of effort.

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 When Life Is Getting In the Way of Med School: the Value of the Tactical Retreat.

Recess Rehash: Advice for your first clinicals: slow your roll.

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[Dave’s vacation continues, so here’s a rerun to keep you occupied.  New show next week!]

Can you trust MSAR?

When listener Caven wrote in asking why CCOM graduates don’t include hardly any specialists and why they all seemed to be going into primary care, Dave was puzzled.  While it’s true that a state school like ours, serving a rural part of the country, emphasizes primary care, he knew that not ‘everyone’ goes into primary care.  On further questioning, it turns out Caven’s info came from the Medical School Application Requirements (MSAR) tool on the AAMC website!  What was going on?  Dave sought help from his friends in Admissions, and it turns out that MSAR doesn’t tell the whole story…and aspiring med students have to dig deeper.

Also, Dave asks his co-hosts Matt Wilson and Tony Mai, both rising M4s, to give their advice for those starting clinical rotations.  And they help Aline Sandouk and LJ Agostinelli answer some of Yahoo! Answers most probing health questions.


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

There’s good news in med school diversity–the number of students underrepresented in medicine is on the rise.  A paper in Nature Microbiology says the authors have found an easy and economic way to convert A and B red blood cells to type O cells, the universal donor type.  And a study in JAMA notes that patients of surgeons who behave unprofessionally around their colleagues have more complications.  Plus, cell phone horns are probably not a thing.

We Want to Hear From You

What’s questions can we answer for you? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Recess Rehash: Advice for your first clinicals: slow your roll.

Advice for your first clinicals: slow your roll.

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Can you trust MSAR?

When listener Caven wrote in asking why CCOM graduates don’t include hardly any specialists and why they all seemed to be going into primary care, Dave was puzzled.  While it’s true that a state school like ours, serving a rural part of the country, emphasizes primary care, he knew that not ‘everyone’ goes into primary care.  On further questioning, it turns out Caven’s info came from the Medical School Application Requirements (MSAR) tool on the AAMC website!  What was going on?  Dave sought help from his friends in Admissions, and it turns out that MSAR doesn’t tell the whole story…and aspiring med students have to dig deeper.

Also, Dave asks his co-hosts Matt Wilson and Tony Mai, both rising M4s, to give their advice for those starting clinical rotations.  And they help Aline Sandouk and LJ Agostinelli answer some of Yahoo! Answers most probing health questions.


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

There’s good news in med school diversity–the number of students underrepresented in medicine is on the rise.  A paper in Nature Microbiology says the authors have found an easy and economic way to convert A and B red blood cells to type O cells, the universal donor type.  And a study in JAMA notes that patients of surgeons who behave unprofessionally around their colleagues have more complications.  Plus, cell phone horns are probably not a thing.

We Want to Hear From You

What’s questions can we answer for you? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Advice for your first clinicals: slow your roll.

Recess Rehash: What Med Schools Miss Out On Because of “Technical Standards”

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Diversity includes disability

halt photo
Photo by b_lumenkraft

[We took a break last week, so here’s a rerun in case you missed it!]

Dr. Marley Doyle is a reproductive psychiatrist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.  She’s also “legally blind”, with 20/400 vision.  She struggled through medical school just like all med students, but with that additional complication.  She made it, however, and her discussion with Aditi Patel and Irisa Mahaparn gives some clues as to why.  First, her disability was invisible which made it easy for people to assume that she wasn’t disabled.  And second, she was naive to the fact that she could ask for help.  In other words, she stumbled through it all and came out the other side without having been a “burden” for her school. Years later, she acknowledges that she could have asked for more help.

We also discuss the technical standards that most schools have in place to define what a student physician should be able to do physically, intellectually, and emotionally to succeed in school.  These standards, however, often seem to be written with a stereotypical disabled person in mind, one who cannot possible succeed because of their disability, and thus should not be in medical school.  We discuss the concept of “assumed competence” which, as  recent CCOM guest lecturer Dr. Oluwaferanmi Okanlami pointed out, allows people with disabilities to show they are able to fulfill their duties as opposed to assuming they cannot.  And we discuss the AAMC’s recent first-of-its-kind report “Accessibility, Inclusion, and Action in Medical Education Lived Experiences of Learners and Physicians With Disabilities,” which brought to light the inconsistent policies and procedures for, lack of support of, and lack of awareness many schools have of their legal obligations under the law towards students with disabilities.  And we talk about why med schools that don’t encourage disabled people to apply are missing out on a piece of the diversity puzzle.

Plus, Dr. Doyle helps answer a listener who is lucky enough to have several med school acceptances, and wants to know how to decide among them!  Lucky you, ‘Anxious Premed!’  Don’t worry, we can 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!

We Want to Hear From You

Are you living with a disability and discouraged about your med school plans?  Are you in medical school, disabled, and have some advice to offer? Tell us about it by calling 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Recess Rehash: What Med Schools Miss Out On Because of “Technical Standards”

What Med Schools Miss Out On Because of “Technical Standards”

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Diversity includes disability

halt photo
Photo by b_lumenkraft

Dr. Marley Doyle is a reproductive psychiatrist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.  She’s also “legally blind”, with 20/400 vision.  She struggled through medical school just like all med students, but with that additional complication.  She made it, however, and her discussion with Aditi Patel and Irisa Mahaparn gives some clues as to why.  First, her disability was invisible which made it easy for people to assume that she wasn’t disabled.  And second, she was naive to the fact that she could ask for help.  In other words, she stumbled through it all and came out the other side without having been a “burden” for her school. Years later, she acknowledges that she could have asked for more help.

We also discuss the technical standards that most schools have in place to define what a student physician should be able to do physically, intellectually, and emotionally to succeed in school.  These standards, however, often seem to be written with a stereotypical disabled person in mind, one who cannot possible succeed because of their disability, and thus should not be in medical school.  We discuss the concept of “assumed competence” which, as  recent CCOM guest lecturer Dr. Oluwaferanmi Okanlami pointed out, allows people with disabilities to show they are able to fulfill their duties as opposed to assuming they cannot.  And we discuss the AAMC’s recent first-of-its-kind report “Accessibility, Inclusion, and Action in Medical Education Lived Experiences of Learners and Physicians With Disabilities,” which brought to light the inconsistent policies and procedures for, lack of support of, and lack of awareness many schools have of their legal obligations under the law towards students with disabilities.  And we talk about why med schools that don’t encourage disabled people to apply are missing out on a piece of the diversity puzzle.

Plus, Dr. Doyle helps answer a listener who is lucky enough to have several med school acceptances, and wants to know how to decide among them!  Lucky you, ‘Anxious Premed!’  Don’t worry, we can 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!

We Want to Hear From You

Are you living with a disability and discouraged about your med school plans?  Are you in medical school, disabled, and have some advice to offer? Tell us about it by calling 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading What Med Schools Miss Out On Because of “Technical Standards”

Nebraska has questions.

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Jennifer Andersen, a sociology PhD student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, teaches a course called Sociology of Health and Health Care.  She reached out to us to propose that her students would send in questions for us as an extra credit assignment, which was a great idea we jumped on because it meant Dave would barely have to prepare for this show…I mean, it’d be a great education opportunity for her students’ young, fertile minds.

Ahem. Aaanyhow, her students really stepped up with some great topics for Aline Sandouk, Aditi Patel, and new co-hosts Kelsey Anderson and Jacob Chrestenson.  So come along with us as we dive into questions like, have you ever had to do something in med school that wasn’t ethical,  is it better to come to medical school with an open mind about your eventual career, and what’s it like working with different attendings all the time? They’ve got answers to all these queries and a lot more.

We Want to Hear From You

What do you want us to talk about on a future show?   Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

Continue reading Nebraska has questions.

Positive Exposure with Rick Guidotti

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Photos by Rick Guidotti

Rick Guidotti is a fashion photographer working in New York, Milan, Paris, and London for everyone from Elle to Yves Saint Laurent. In 1997, he and physician Diane McLean founded Positive Exposure, a non-profit organization dedicated to using the visual arts to highlight the beauty of genetic diversity and challenging the stigmas associated with differences in appearance. Positive Exposure presents diversity workshops, educational and human rights programs, and multimedia exhibitions for physicians, nurses, genetic counselors, health care professionals-in-training, universities, elementary and secondary schools, legislators, and the general public.  Rick sat down with Iowa medical students Kurt Wall and Miriam Wiener to talk about his work with Positive Exposure, and about what families who live with genetic, physical, and intellectual differences want: to have their stories heard.

While you listen, be sure to visit http://positiveexposure.org/, and look at the galleries at the bottom of the page to meet the families and people that Positive Exposure works with.

Listen to Episode 020: Positive Exposure with Rick Guidotti.

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.