Tag Archives: humanities

Sleeper Specialty: Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Ft. Dr. Brittany Bettendorf

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A relatively uncommon specialty can help move kids with childhood diseases to adult care

  • In another in our series on “sleeper specialties,” we visit with Internal Medicine-Pediatrics (med-peds) doc Brittany Bettendorf.
  • M1 Alex Nigg and M2 Madeline Ungs learn about this lesser known specialty that combines the detective work of internal medicine with a focus on kids with childhood diseases, including managing their transition to adult care. There aren’t many residencies for med-peds, which alone makes it a sleeper!
  • And Dr. Bettendorf talks about her work in medical humanities at CCOM as a Medicine and Society course director, Humanities Distinction Track co-director, editor of our literary journal, and more.

More about our guest:

Website: https://medicine.uiowa.edu/internalmedicine/profile/brittany-bettendorf

We Want to Hear From You: YOUR VOICE MATTERS!

No matter where you fall on any spectrum, we want your thoughts on our show.  Do you agree or disagree with something we said today?  Did you hear something really helpful?  Are we delivering a podcast you want to keep listening to?  We’ll be sure your ideas are heard by all–leave a message at 347-SHORTCT (347-746-7828) and we’ll put your message in a future episode (use *67 to be an “Unknown caller”).
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Continue reading Sleeper Specialty: Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Ft. Dr. Brittany Bettendorf

Adding a PHD: Choosing the Right Option for YOu

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Should you do a combined MD/PhD, an Medical Scientist Training Program, or get them one-at-a-time?

TL;DR

  • There are at least three ways an aspiring MD/PhD can add those last three letter to their name, but why choose one way over another?
  • To celebrate our CCOM Art Show, the crew makes some art for Dave to admire (See them for yourselves on our Instagram.
  • The co-hosts answer Dave’s probing questions as he tries to get to know them even better.

We Want to Hear From You: YOUR VOICE MATTERS!

No matter where you fall on any spectrum, we want your thoughts on our show.  Do you agree or disagree with something we said today?  Did you hear something really helpful?  Are we delivering a podcast you want to keep listening to?  We’ll be sure your ideas are heard by all–leave a message at 347-SHORTCT (347-746-7828) and we’ll put your message in a future episode (use *67 to be an “Unknown caller”).

We want to know more about you: Take the Listener Survey

Continue reading Adding a PHD: Choosing the Right Option for YOu

Music Soothes and Builds Teams

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Medical students who play instruments together and with others see benefits for teamwork and learning

Today’s episode is sponsored by Panacea Financial, a division of Primis, Member FDIC. Check out their PRN Personal Loans to help cover board exams or application costs, with decisions in as little as 24 hours and great interest rates!

TL;DR

  • Medical students can use their music background to enhance their education
  • Playing together and improvising is great practice for working in teams
  • The mental health benefits of playing or singing are huge–it’s impossible to play or sing without forgetting your cares.

M2s AJ Chowdhury (bass guitar), Trey Krupp (guitar), Anthony Piscopo (vocals) and M4 Dhruv Kothari (singer-songwriters), discuss their lives as musicians, and the uses that music has for understanding their lives as medical students and team members. Keeping music in their lives despite what feels like the all-consuming nature of medical education.

Listen to Trey Krupp on Spotify!

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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Crushing It with Mental Illness During Med School

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[We’re re-releasing this episode because when it was first posted the file was screwed up.  Enjoy!]

Much like America, doctors are afraid of mental illness.

mental illness photo
Photo by darcyadelaide

Physicians are no better than the rest of us at dealing with mental illness, even as they work valiantly to get their patients to recognize and get treatment for their conditions. As society becomes more open about ‘mood disorders,’  it is still common for MDs to reject treatment for depression, substance abuse disorders, anxiety, and more…and physicians and medical students are literally killing themselves–America loses 300 to 400 doctors every year to suicide.  Our co-hosts this week, Zeynep Demir, Innie Kim, Jason Lewis, and Kaci McCleary all have experienced their own disorders, and have formed a CCOM chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.  Still in it’s infancy, they’ll be working to destigmatize mental illness among physicians, residents, and medical students in the hope that those who suffer can be saved and become what they always wanted to be: effective, compassionate, and healthy physicians.

We want to hear from you.

Do you suffer from a mental illness, and worry about your future as a physician? We’d love to hear your story, anonymously if that’s what you’d prefer.  Call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, and email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Crushing It with Mental Illness During Med School

Harry Potter and the Suddenly Bald Litigant

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What do you do when you’re pulled in too many directions?

Yer a wizard, ‘arry!

The world of work, and medical school, is often about adjusting for a number of “top” priorities.   Dave’s been having one of those weeks where his work is pulling him in several directions at once, and thought to ask his co-hosts Erin Pasaski, Patrick Brau, Elizabeth Shirazi, and Kaci McCleary what techniques they use when they, inevitably, find themselves struggling to manage all of the important tasks med school throws at them.

Also, since the CCOM Writing and Humanities Program exists to bring art into the lives of busy med students, Dave went out and bought playdough so his co-hosts could flex their sculpting skills on common patient complaints.  Visit our Facebook page for the gallery!

This Week’s Medical News…

Speaking of priorities, Ars Technica takes note of the FDA’s somewhat lackadaisical interest in surveilling the cosmetics and hair care industry, and why that should probably change.  Will flu shots (and other vaccination injections) soon be replaced by a tiny bed of nails?  And Dave warns medical students not to study with their phones in the same room.

We want to hear from you.

If you have something to say or a question to ask, and think we are the best people to do so, who are we to question your judgement? Call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, and email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Harry Potter and the Suddenly Bald Litigant

Keeping Up With Your Interests and Relationships

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hobby photo
Photo by Cooperweb

Stress is a part of medical school.  Worrying about tests, studying until you drop, late nights, early mornings, and drinking from the firehose all seem to promote the idea that med students should do nothing else but study.  Dave, Aditi Patel, Marc Toral, Levi Endelman, and Kylie Miller agree, which is one reason Aditi and Dave put on a monthly Art Club.  Students get together over lunch and have fun with paints, ceramics, drawing, whatever!  No pressure, just an hour away from medicine.

And speaking of being away from medicine, a listener calls into 347-SHORTCT with a question about how best to keep in touch with family and friends who might not understand the demands of medical school.  And we discuss Aditi’s family (who just happen to be the subject of a documentary available on Netflix) and the methods they’re using to select her future husband.  And we play Superfight!

Continue reading Keeping Up With Your Interests and Relationships

Recess Rehash: Nick’s Post Apocalyptic Harem

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end of the world photo
Nick cranes his head around to look into the back seat at his little group. “Ladies, we’re almost at the compound.” Photo by Nico Time

 

 

 

 

 

[Today’s episode is a rerun, brought to you by Dave’s vacation.  Enjoy!]

This time, Mark Toral, John Pienta, Kaci McCleary and Nick Sparr discuss Medical Student Performance Evaluations and Dave’s problem: if you’re looking for it to be a recommendation, that’s not going to happen; but the good news is that when you start your clinical rotations, you are already starting to write your own MSPE through the comments you get, so we discuss how to get good comments and how to learn from the formative ones. We debate Mt. Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine ongoing program that guarantees admission to college sophomores who have good grades and are humanities majors, no MCAT required. And Nick describes one of his medschool interviews in which he laid out his plans for an end-of-the-world harem.

Won’t you leave us a review? iTunes | Stitcher

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Nick’s Post Apocalyptic Harem

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end of the world photo
Nick cranes his head around to look into the back seat at his little group. “Ladies, we’re almost at the compound.” Photo by Nico Time

This time, Mark Toral, John Pienta, Kaci McCleary and Nick Sparr discuss Medical Student Performance Evaluations and Dave’s problem: if you’re looking for it to be a recommendation, that’s not going to happen; but the good news is that when you start your clinical rotations, you are already starting to write your own MSPE through the comments you get, so we discuss how to get good comments and how to learn from the formative ones. We debate Mt. Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine ongoing program that guarantees admission to college sophomores who have good grades and are humanities majors, no MCAT required. And Nick describes one of his medschool interviews in which he laid out his plans for an end-of-the-world harem.

Won’t you leave us a review? iTunes | Stitcher

Continue reading Nick’s Post Apocalyptic Harem

A Doctor’s Story with Terrence Holt

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Terrence Holt, MD
Terrence Holt, MD

On this week’s show, Dr. Terrence Holt, author of Internal Medicine: A Doctor’s Stories visits with Writing and Humanities Program Director Jason Lewis, and students Cole Cheney, Ethan Forsgren, Aline Sandouk, and a studio audience. Dr. Holt is a geriatrician at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.  His book is about residency, and is an exploration of how doctors find the compassion and strength to care about their work and patients.  The first chapter,  “A Sign of Weakness,” takes us through an inexperienced doctor’s confrontation of his own helplessness against the impending death of his patient.  You may want to read it before you listen. (Look for the link below the audio player.)

 Dr. Holt has a lot to offer med students in terms of wisdom.  How having a deep and thoughtful appreciation of your own humanity helps If you’re going to practice medicine humanely.  The role doubt plays in the life of a doc, and the fact that If you’re not having doubt multiple times in the course of a day, you’re not paying close enough attention.  The things that keep him going as a doctor and as a writer. How the connection between writer and reader gives writers advantages that other kinds of artists may not have. And using literature as a way of getting the kinds of experience that you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

Episode 048: A Doctor’s Story with Terrence Holt

Excerpt: Internal Medicine: A Doctor’s Stories, “A Sign of Weakness”

Excerpted from Internal Medicine: A Doctor’s Stories by Terrence Holt. Copyright © 2014 by Terrence Holt. With permission of the publisher, Liveright Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved

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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.