Tag Archives: money

Does a Career in Medicine Make Financial Sense?

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COVID changed how much docs are paid.

  • Chirayu (M2), Maddie (M2), Tracy (M2) and new co-host Levi (MSTP) discuss the financial changes that doctors experienced after COVID, and whether a career in medicine makes as much financial sense as it once did.
  • MIT scientists use locust cyborgs to find cancer cells.  
  • We visit with two premeds–Deeraj and Daniel–who are proving that competing with classmates is a losing strategy for studying medicine.

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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Med Student Life: Evals, Boards, and Carmel Corn Bribery

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Med student’s lives are much like everyone else’s. Except for the constant critique and testing.

  • Morgan (M3), Eric (M3), Aline (MSTP), and Abby (graduate!) discuss their experiences being evaluated in medical school.
  • Abby offers her big tips for new MDs to get the best deal on internet service (apply for Medicaid and wait for them to give you candy).
  • A doc goes to jail for his COVID cure kits.
  • We practice giving sincere compliments to each other while trying to make the other person laugh.
  • Can the co-hosts reassure a freaked out Redditor who abuses Imodium?

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

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Awesome, More application Hoops!

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Get ready for new application requirements (and to pay more money?)

TL;DR

  • CASPer seeks to help schools understand applicants’ non-academic and people skills. It’s never been validated, but more and more schools are using it.
  • Some residency programs have begun using ‘supplemental questions’ as so-called objective measures like STEP 1 and STEP 2 CS fall away.
  • Are these new hurdles useful? Or do they add to the burden of becoming a doctor for no reason?

Dave had never heard of CASPer before (Iowa doesn’t currently use it), so he was surprised to hear that a bunch of schools–and more all the time–are using it to outsource their judgements of applicants’ so-called ‘soft’ skills like ethics and collaboration. However, there are reasons to doubt CASPer’s utility, including that it’s not clear it’s actually measuring these things. And while it costs students a small amount per school (‘small’ being a relative term, especially if the student is cash-strapped), what does it cost the schools who use it and how much of that gets passed on in tuition?

And in their never-ending quest to find the ‘best’ applicants, residency programs are finding new ways to evaluate them, such as requiring answers to ‘supplemental’ questions that sound an awful lot like a secondary application. And the part that includes signaling the applicant’s program preference seems a wee bit suspicious to Dave, MD/PhD student Aline Sandouk, M2 Nicole Hines, M2 AJ Chowdhury, and M4 Mackenzie Walhof.

And is Britney Spears being subject to reproductive coercion by her conservators?

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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Med School Hidden Costs, and Extracurricular Activities

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Med School is Expensive…More Than You Know

But what’s this? Podcast merch?  Dave has a special announcement, what we’re going to use the money for (it’s not for the show), and how you can get a special offer and help do some good at the same time.

Everybody knows about med school tuition.  And then there’s the cost of student loans.  But there’s so much more, and listener Richard wrote in to theshortcoats@gmail.com ask: what are the hidden costs of attending medical school?  Luckily Dave has a crew of people on hand who’ve figured that out: Aline Sandouk, Nick Lind, Maddie Mix, and LJ Agostinelli.  Get prepared with their list of things you need to spend money on, and a couple things you shouldn’t spend on.  Another listener, Sarah, would like some idea of what kinds of extracurricular activities med students can get into, and how to find them. We got you, Sarah!

And after pondering what the point is of the case study in medical literature (aside from amusing Dave to no end), the crew takes a pop quiz on weird cases found on the internet.

This Week in Medical News

The Gates Foundation may be throwing it’s considerable weight and funding behind reducing maternal deaths in the US.

We Want to Hear From You

What hidden costs of medical school did we miss?  Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

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The Business of Medicine

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Should medical students learn more about the business of medicine?

Medical school definitely hasn’t made a priority of teaching about how medicine works as a business.  MDs who get involved in that side of healthcare typically learn on the job. But recent caller Ryan is interested in that topic, and wanted to hear from us about what CCOM students are learning about it.

A couple years ago, M4 Joe Nellis and some other students founded the Healthcare Management and Delivery Science Distinction Track.  One reason was that their families had questions they couldn’t answer about the topic.  They also knew that decisions about healthcare delivery and outcomes evaluation were being made without MDs having a clear idea (or even input on) how and why.  Joe and M2s Philip Huang and Amanda Manarot got together with Dave to talk about what they’ve learning on issues like teamwork, e-health, data and decision-making. And while the healthcare leaders of tomorrow still have to learn much of the biz after they leave medical school, having a fuller grasp of the forces that affect how medicine is practiced is key, especially as the private practice of medicine gives way to employment in hospitals and other organizations.

This Week in Medical News

Dave took issue with this article which posits that doctors’ salaries are a problem for healthcare costs, despite the fact that according to the author’s own figures, that amount makes up about 1/32 of the cost of healthcare per US household.

We Want to Hear From You

Do you want to learn about this stuff?  Or are you content to worry only about taking care of patients? Tell us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

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What penniless med students should know about money with Joe Saul-Sehy

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Guest quote rightDo you, dear students, have tons of money? No? Weird. Luckily, Joe Saul-Sehy of the Stacking Benjamins podcast joins us on the show this week.  Joe was a financial advisor for many years, he was known as the Money Man on WXYZ-TV in Detroit, and he’s a financial contributor in a bunch of places around the print and web news media. He and his wife Cheryl, a pediatrician, have gone through all the stages that pre-meds and med students go through. So we asked him to join us to talk about the strategies they employed to claw their way back from med school debt, educating yourself about how money works, having fun with  managing your money, and why it’s particularly important for doctors to understand money.  Joe’s got plenty of information, resources and ‘fintech’ apps to recommend for succeeding in this area that many people (never mind med students) have not adequately explored.

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Off the Hook On the Cheap

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Medical school is expensive, as everyone knows. The Association of American Medical Colleges tells us that annual tuition and fees at state medical schools in 2010-2011 averaged $25,000 for in-state residents and $48,000 for non-residents. Out of state residents at private medical schools paid even more, and these figures don’t include living expenses and housing.

Fortunately, there are lots of sources of financial aid available; but it’s important to take care with your discretionary spending while you’re in medical school so that you don’t graduate with unmanageable debt. Which brings up the question: how can you have live your life and have fun while you’re in medical school? In this episode of The Short Coat, financial aid counselor Penny Rembolt talks with students Molly Calabria, Priyanka Rao, Tyler Gunn, and Will Zeitler about their methods for saving money while having a good time in medical school.

Listen:  Episode 008: Off the Hook On the Cheap

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.