Two questions this week from Short Coats! Listener Luis wrote in to ask what books co-hosts Hillary O’Brien, Kylie Miller, Emma Barr and newbie Sahaana Arumugam consulted to find their paths. And Mia wrote to theshortcoats@gmail.com to find out more about MS/DO or MS/MD programs and what they look for in their applicants. And can we find patient-care uses for weird proverbs? No, we can’t. But it was fun to try.
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!
Writing your residency application personal statement is easy! Photo by jenna.kaminsky
A cliche, but true. Because without the nurses (and other people) doing their jobs to help the doctor, the doctor can’t do nuthin’–no IVs, no regular BP checks, no comfortable patients, no monitoring while they’re home sleeping, no nothing. Listener Amber stops by to ask what med students learn about nurses and how to work with them. M4s Hillary O’Brien and Kylie Miller and new M1 co-hosts Jessica De Haan and Greta Becker are happy to help, because nurses are the spine and a big portion of the central nervous system of medicine. And Fifi Trixiebell returns, craving med school war stories. Also, Hillary and Kylie discuss the residency personal statements they wrote and where they sought 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
Do you have war stories to share? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime to tell us. We’ll play them for Fifi (and whoever else is listening).
This week, we’re winging it on SCP–life was a bit more complicated for Dave than usual–but we have some great questions to address from some non-US listeners. Nice to have confirmation that we have more than a couple of those! Luke from Australia wants to come to America, either to study medicine or after his Australian medical education is complete. Which should he choose, and what will he think of our Australian accents after he listens? And Justin, listening in the Philippines, wants to know what story our co-hosts tell themselves when they think about why they’re studying medicine. Justin Hababag, Aditi Patel, and Kylie Miller are on hand to discuss.
We Want to Hear From You
What story do you tell yourself about your interest in medicine? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com. Do all three!
Aline Sandouk discusses with her co-hosts the recent breakthrough in her research–which is pretty much that she’s experiencing the exact opposite of what PhD students fear, and that her research may just have a path forward. Whew! And while we couldn’t answer any listener questions this week–hang in there, Madeline and Tiana, you’re on the list!–we did answer anatomy questions asked with dental mouth spreaders in our mouths. Warning: this episode contains more than the usual amount saliva-based sounds.
Listener Hannah wrote in after shadowing physicians, noting that many of the morbidly obese patients she observed resisted their doctors’ advice to lose weight. Is there any hope that doctors can treat this intractable illness when patients don’t “want” to do the work? Aline Sandouk, Claire Casteneda, Kylie Miller, and newbie Ali Hassan offer their views and what they’ve learned so far about treating this difficult disease.
Also, in Dave’s constant quest to ‘contribute’ to his co-hosts clinical skills, we visit the saddest place on the Internet, Yahoo! Answers, so they can practice their patient education techniques.
This Week in Medical News
Congratulations, Sperm Donor #2757! You’re the father of 45 girls and boys between the ages of 1 to 21 years old, and your generosity has made things very weird! And we discuss yet another questionable beauty practice, the vampire facial, which OH COME ON NOW, HOW IS THIS EVEN A THING?
We Want to Hear From You
What are your views on the obesity epidemic…is it hopeless? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com. Do all three!
A live stage show featuring the stories of healthcare providers is now a podcast you’ll love.
Dr. Silverman is an academic hospitalist at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, where she seeks out projects that resurrect the narrative soul of medicine. (Photo: http://thenocturnists.com/team/)
The day-to-day of internship, residency, and an MD career doesn’t allow much time to process the effect it’s having on the practitioner. Rushing from one patient to the next, putting out the fires even while drinking from the firehose, and being selfless in service to the patients’ needs means that one’s own stories are buried, neglected. More and more, however, medicine is acknowledging the need for practitioners to examine and tell their stories so that they can learn from them, teach their lessons to others, and show colleagues that they are not alone. In 2015 Dr. Emily Silverman was in her second year of her internal medicine residency at UCSF. She found herself with a little more time following her frenetic intern year, and with her own stories that had gone untold and unexamined. She started to write, first in a blog she called The Nocturnists. Then, in 2016 she organized the first live storytelling session with her colleagues.
Now, in 2018, those live sessions–held in theaters with fun music and a bar, but most importantly, distant from the hospital– are playing to sellout crowds. Not only do the shows allow for catharsis, but for community. And because Dr. Silverman isn’t ready to allow The University of Iowa to be a satellite venue (and believe us, we asked), we’re grateful that The Nocturnists is also a podcast! Each episode feature a piece from the live show, followed by a relaxed, thoughtful discussion between Dr. Silverman and the storyteller. Her email to Dave earlier this spring to tell The Short Coats about The Nocturnists was a wonderful break from the usual pitches for Caribbean med schools and Ivy League pay-to-play programs; and it gave Kylie Miller, Brendan George, Marisa Evers, and Sanjeeva Weerasinghe a great opportunity to discuss what it is The Nocturnists are thinking about.
We Want to Hear From You
If you could get up on stage and tell your story, what would you say? Well, we have a stage! Tell the world–call 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.
We love when listeners get in touch, which is why Dave was glad to hear from Adil who, after listening to our discussion of the new national Right-To-Try legislation, sent us a paper he wrote on the subject the year before. It really helped clear some things up that we weren’t sure of. Like the fact that it doesn’t actually do anything to help patients get faster access to experimental drugs, has a kind of informed consent problem, allows patients to further conflate research with therapy, and more.
And with thousands of new medical students poised to matriculate this fall, Dave and co-hosts Aline Sandouk, Kylie Miller, and Amy Hanson try out a new awkward icebreaker activity to see if it has some utility for new student orientations.
This Week in Medical News
The Trump administration walks back their recent decision to claw back money earmarked for fighting epidemics around the world. Back home, St. Louis University opens an influenza hotel. And the function of REM sleep finally revealed…maybe.
We Want to Hear From You
What do you most want to find out during your upcoming med school orientation? Are you nervous? Are you excited? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.
A live stage show featuring the stories of healthcare providers is now a podcast you’ll love.
Dr. Silverman is an academic hospitalist at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, where she seeks out projects that resurrect the narrative soul of medicine. (Photo: http://thenocturnists.com/team/)
The day-to-day of internship, residency, and an MD career doesn’t allow much time to process the effect it’s having on the practitioner. Rushing from one patient to the next, putting out the fires even while drinking from the firehose, and being selfless in service to the patients’ needs means that one’s own stories are buried, neglected. More and more, however, medicine is acknowledging the need for practitioners to examine and tell their stories so that they can learn from them, teach their lessons to others, and show colleagues that they are not alone. In 2015 Dr. Emily Silverman was in her second year of her internal medicine residency at UCSF. She found herself with a little more time following her frenetic intern year, and with her own stories that had gone untold and unexamined. She started to write, first in a blog she called The Nocturnists. Then, in 2016 she organized the first live storytelling session with her colleagues.
Now, in 2018, those live sessions–held in theaters with fun music and a bar, but most importantly, distant from the hospital– are playing to sellout crowds. Not only do the shows allow for catharsis, but for community. And because Dr. Silverman isn’t ready to allow The University of Iowa to be a satellite venue (and believe us, we asked), we’re grateful that The Nocturnists is also a podcast! Each episode feature a piece from the live show, followed by a relaxed, thoughtful discussion between Dr. Silverman and the storyteller. Her email to Dave earlier this spring to tell The Short Coats about The Nocturnists was a wonderful break from the usual pitches for Caribbean med schools and Ivy League pay-to-play programs; and it gave Kylie Miller, Brendan George, Marisa Evers, and Sanjeeva Weerasinghe a great opportunity to discuss what it is The Nocturnists are thinking about.
We Want to Hear From You
If you could get up on stage and tell your story, what would you say? Well, we have a stage! Tell the world–call 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.
[Dave had the flu on recording day, so we’re posting this awesome episode from the recent past. Enjoy!]
Dave found himself hosting with another group of women, so what better time to talk about #MeToo and the powerful people being taken down by their sexual harassment and abuse of their less-powerful victims? Erin Pazaski, Hillary O’Brien, Laura Quast, and Liza Mann weigh in on why this seems to have staying power in the news cycle, and why it seems to destroy some powerful men and not others. Plus, since this is a group of friends who, through med school, have come to know each other well, Dave challenges each to answer questions as their friends would.
This Week in Medical News
Speaking of creepy, The University of Miami has a problem on its hands with a medical student who’s been posting other students’ social media pics of their car selfies and beach photos on websites where other folks are excited by such things. A New Hampshire doc loses her license after refusing to use an EHR because she’d rather practice ‘medical art’ (and not properly tracking her prescribing practices). And more medical schools want to hear from premeds what they think about the national debate on the ACA and the individual insurance mandate.
Kylie Miller and Issac Schwantes take a break from their fairly new clinical duties to let Gabe Conley and Erik Kneller know how it’s going working with actual patients. What unexpected things have they learned? Were their professors really correct when the said that arcane bit of information would actually be useful in the real world? Were their fears (whatever they were) realized? Would they rather grandma puke every time they broke wind, or have a shingles outbreak whenever they get a passing grade or better in medical school? Dave assures them: these are the questions listeners want answers to.
What are your fears for starting the next phase of your education? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.
Two questions this week from Short Coats! Listener Luis wrote in to ask what books co-hosts Hillary O’Brien, Kylie Miller, Emma Barr and newbie Sahaana Arumugam consulted to find their paths. And Mia wrote to theshortcoats@gmail.com to find out more about MS/DO or MS/MD programs and what they look for in their applicants. And can we find patient-care uses for weird proverbs? No, we can’t. But it was fun to try.
[Dave had the flu on recording day, so we’re posting this awesome episode from the recent past. Enjoy!]