Tag Archives: studying

Uncovered! First-Year Students Learn Way More than Medicine

Share

First year of med school contains many life lessons.

  • We are fortunate to have a friends group of first-year students on the show to look back on their experience and reflect on what they discovered.
  • M1s Olivia and Katie, and PA1 Faith talked with Dave and admissions guru Rachel about how their lives have changed, what they realized about themselves, and their plan for incorporating those lessons into year 2.

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 Uncovered! First-Year Students Learn Way More than Medicine

Pancakes and Firehoses: How Med Students Decide Where to Focus

Share

There’s always something more to do, but should you do it? And how much?

  • First, we get something important out of the way: Is “Drinking from the Firehose” the best analogy for medical school’s workload, or is “The (Infinite) Stack of Pancakes” more accurate?
  • M2s Matt and Zay, MD/PhD student Riley and M4 Nathen discuss how they decide how much to do in medical school to become the best doctor they can be.

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 Pancakes and Firehoses: How Med Students Decide Where to Focus

Monkeypox: a National Health Emergency

Share

Have we learned anything from HIV or COVID?

  • M4 Nathen, M2s Noah and Shana, and MD/PhD student Aline discuss the new epidemic of “Monkeypox,” and try to discern if our country has learned anything about how to respond to emerging diseases.
  • A BMC Medical Education journal article shines some light on the best (and worst) study techniques med students use to drink from the firehose.
  • Dave asks his co-hosts to celebrate an incoming class of med students by PIMPing each other…while wearing mouth spreaders.

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 Monkeypox: a National Health Emergency

Sociaizing and Studying: How do Med Students Do It?

Share

Med students are usually intentional about everything, even the balance between social and school

TL;DR

  • The M4s are picking their favorite residency programs in the hopes that they love the next phase of their training. We discuss the factors they’re weighing now that interviews are done.
  • A listener about to start med school wants to know how students study, and how they also have social lives when studying is so intense.
reject photo

Listener Sunrise Warghost called the Short Coat Listener Line (347-SHORTCT) because she’ll start school in the fall, and is wondering about the study techniques and mental habits medical students use to crush it in medical school. M4s Emma Bar, NIck Lind, and Madeline Cusimano, and M3 Nathen Spitz help with the tips and tricks they’ve discovered. And they also offer their methods for maintaining a social life as well, both within and outside the cloistered world of medical school.

But first, a discussion from the M4s on the factors they’re weighing as they nail down which residency programs they would like to train at next year, because like everything else in their lives, intentionality is key.

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 Sociaizing and Studying: How do Med Students Do It?

Recess Rehash: Life Hacks for Med Students

Share

Due to the Thanksgiving Holiday, we weren’t in the studio to record a new show last week. Instead, enjoy this rerun!

Med school life hacks are all about maximizing efficiency, minimizing friction.

TL;DR

  • Eliminate unnecessary friction to the completion of a task
  • Paying others to do other life tasks can be helpful
  • Saying no is as important as maximizing efficiency.

Today we explore the things that med students do to maximize their efficiency. These are the small steps they take to eliminate friction to completing chores, focusing attention where it’s needed instead of where your brain wants it to be, and eliminating those tasks that just aren’t that important to them. M4 Mackenzie Walhof, MD/PhD student Aline Sandouk, M2 Nicole Hines, and M2 AJ Chowdhury explore with Dave their own personal life hacks.

Also, Dave ran famous doctors’ photos multiple times through an app that makes caricatures until they were no longer recognizable, then made videos of the progression. How fast can the crew identify them when the video is reversed? Play along at home on our Instagram.

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: Life Hacks for Med Students

Life Hacks for Med Students

Share

Med school life hacks are all about maximizing efficiency, minimizing friction.

TL;DR

  • Eliminate unnecessary friction to the completion of a task
  • Paying others to do other life tasks can be helpful
  • Saying no is as important as maximizing efficiency.

Today we explore the things that med students do to maximize their efficiency. These are the small steps they take to eliminate friction to completing chores, focusing attention where it’s needed instead of where your brain wants it to be, and eliminating those tasks that just aren’t that important to them. M4 Mackenzie Walhof, MD/PhD student Aline Sandouk, M2 Nicole Hines, and M2 AJ Chowdhury explore with Dave their own personal life hacks.

Also, Dave ran famous doctors’ photos multiple times through an app that makes caricatures until they were no longer recognizable, then made videos of the progression. How fast can the crew identify them when the video is reversed? Play along at home on our Instagram.

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 Life Hacks for Med Students

Study Tips, Annoying Hics, and Fat Cloud Rips

Share

poop photoA question from listener Blake–do we use Anki or Brainscape for studying–led to a discussion of the various tools and techniques Aline Sandouk (MD/PhD student), Nick Lind, Madeline Cusimano, and Mason LaMarche (all M2s) use to shove medical knowledge into their brains.

And the co-hosts get some practice with their patient communication skills using questions posed by Yahoo! Answers users.


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

MIT wants pics of your poop to train their artificial intelligence with, which is not at all a problem.  Hiccups could be a way of teaching babies how to monitor their breathing, an activity that is partially under voluntary control.  And the vaping sickness epidemic continues.

We Want to Hear From You

What are your favorite study apps and tools? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

Continue reading Study Tips, Annoying Hics, and Fat Cloud Rips

What Tech Makes Med School Easier?

Share

When you’re drinking from the firehose, you need a good straw.  This is why medical students often turn to technology to help distill everything down into something they can actually remember and use.  But buried under a mountain of technological possibilities, it’s really difficult to decide on what level of dependence on technology you’ll accept, what apps to use, what websites to trust, how to establish a workflow for studying, whether or not residents (or worse, patients) will ding you for whipping out your smartphone during rounds, how to keep all your devices charged, and how to pay for it all.

Students Alison Pletch, Jesse Van Maanen, and Cole Cheney talked about the tech they use;  what about you?  

Listen to Episode 029: What Tech Makes Med School Easier?.

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.