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The Secondary Application: Bragging vs. Confidence

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How can you brag about yourself without bragging about yourself?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4773691/

We are taught from a  young age (most of us, anyway) not to brag.  It is better, we may sometimes hear, to show confidence.  Listener Rachel wrote in with a question about the secondary application: how does one confidently talk themselves up without coming across as a braggart?  Lucky for Rachel, we have Daniel Schnall from our admissions staff on hand to help Mark Moubarek, Kylie Miller, Aline Sandouk, and Gabe Conley with some great advice about how to sell yourself on your application and also back it up.  Don’t want to look like a chump?  Dan has your answer, Rachel.

Kylie had an excellent idea: med students are pressed for time, and nutrition can be one of those things they deep six in favor of studying.  Her thought: let’s make a cookbook for Med Student Success, and listeners can contribute!  Do you have a favorite recipe you use to keep your Kreb’s cycle in tip top shape?  Then submit the recipe so we all can benefit!  Comfort food, speedy prep, healthy living,  or whatever, we want to hear about it!  We’ll publish the results in some fashion, and everyone who contributes will get a free copy!

Plus, the group plays Doctor Forehead.  Do you know the terms and concepts Dave found in the news last week, and why they were even being talked about?

This Week in Medical News

Everyone knows ortho residents don’t get enough exercise.  Skinny, pale, weak, they’re practically collapsing under the weight of their own skin.  Which is why we’re relieved that someone took pity and created a peer reviewed(?) workout routine for them, using common materials found around the ortho workroom.  Get swole!  Is the NIH doing it’s job of funding innovative research and fostering research careers?  Doesn’t sound like it.  And the AMA goes all in on a call to ban the American Dream sale and ownership of assault weapons.

We Want to Hear From You

Are you a gun owner who feels like the AMA goes to far? Do you want advice and don’t want to pay for it?  Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  We’ll talk about it.

Continue reading The Secondary Application: Bragging vs. Confidence

Hotel Influenza, Confirming Right-to-Try Problems, REM Sleep Revealed

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sleep photo
Photo by Mark Turnauckas

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.

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Healthcare In Occupied Palestine: The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund

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[Don’t forget our SCP Key Fob Giveaway…share an episode of the podcast or post a review on iTunes, and send a screenshot to theshortcoats@gmail.com for your free gift–our way of saying thanks for your support!]

The challenges of providing healthcare in an occupied territory

Steve Sosebee and Zeena Salman, MD. Photo by Steve Sosebee (@stevesosebee)

Steve Sosebee is the president and CEO of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. He’s married to Dr. Zeena Salman, a pediatric oncologist working with the PCRF. For 25 years, PCRF has been leading medical missions to help children in the Middle East, helping children get medical treatment abroad, and delivering humanitarian aid. Their recent visit to the Carver College of Medicine gave Short Coats Reem Khodor, Ethan Craig, and Nico Dimenstein a chance to sit down with them to discuss the challenges and realities of working to provide healthcare within the confines of an occupied territory.

Those challenges are sometimes gargantuan, especially compared with the standard of care children receive in the United States. For example, urgently-needed medications and medical equipment being held up in customs; children who must be separated from family members for their cancer treatment because they are not allowed to travel with adults under the age of 55; dealing with the conflicting priorities of the Israeli military and Hamas, which each govern portions of Palestine.

Their passion for the mission–offering better lives to the children of this contested land–is evident. But somehow, any frustration they may feel about the difficulties they and their young beneficiaries face isn’t. Sosebee and Salman have a strikingly matter-of-fact view of the world in which they operate, and are doing what they must for the children and families caught up in a conflict not of their own design.

We Want to Hear From You

What are your experiences with organizations like PCRF or with medical missions abroad? What did you learn from your participation?  Share them at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

Continue reading Healthcare In Occupied Palestine: The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund

Routines, Right To Try, and Reviews

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What Routines Do Medical Students Find Helpful When Drinking from the Firehose?

Photo of a girl gazing at a castle in the clouds
From her perch among the clouds of medical school, Yolanda stared longingly at the residency program of her dreams, knowing deep down inside that her inability to establish a study routine would doom her to a life of *shudder* psychiatry.

Listener Meghan is about to start med school in the fall, and is thinking about what sort of regular habits medical students like Aline Sandouk, Tony Rosenberg, and new co-host Jayden Bowen use to keep them on track.  Not only do we look at some routines they use (and debate whether they’re even helpful), but we also have a suggested routine for the new student.

What Every New Medical Student Needs to Know about The ‘Dean’s Letter.’

And Dave, who’s begun writing dean’s letters (or ‘Medical Student Performance Evaluations’) for students who will be looking for jobs this year, has some sobering news for his co-hosts: they are, themselves, already writing them.  Dave thinks most first-year medical students have never heard of this important document, nor do they know what will be in it…and how it could help or hinder their efforts to land that plum residency.

This Week in Medical News

Dermatologists are less accurate in diagnosing melanomas than the stupidest artificial intelligence…but don’t cancel your derm dreams yet.  Meanwhile, patients get the ‘right to try‘ from the Trump administration…but is bypassing the slow FDA approval process almost completely a good idea, or will the bad actors in medicine end up lining their pockets on the hopes of their desperately ill patients?

We Want to Hear From You

What are your med school routines?  Did your school read you in on the MSPE when you started?  Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

Continue reading Routines, Right To Try, and Reviews

Another Test Anxiety Killer, Physician Bias, and Suspicious Meat

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Her snacks were delicious, but you’ll never guess her secret ingredient.

smug cat photo
Photo by evilsatu

Irisa Mahaparn, Tony Rosenberg,  Aline Sandouk, and  Rachel Schenkel–a crew of rising M3s and an MD/PhD candidate–were on hand this time to help answer some listener questions. Arman writes in to give us his method for combating test anxiety, and Jen wants to know what med students learn about physicians’ bias against obese patients. Plus, our Short Coat Podcast keyfob giveaway is still kicking–listen to find out how to get one of your very own for free.

But first, Irisa has strong feels about her local community supported agriculture subscription, so she made us some snacks.  Most of them were delicious.  One of them was…well, surprising is a word for that one, given Dave’s reaction.

This Week in Medical News

Dave learned this week about one company that says cockroach milk is a superfood.

We Want to Hear From You

Do you want free advice from people who’ve been there? Leave a message at 347-SHORTCT, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com!

Continue reading Another Test Anxiety Killer, Physician Bias, and Suspicious Meat

Relax or Prepare? Advice for Incoming Med Students

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Spoiler alert:  don’t “prepare” during the summer before you arrive at medical school.

summertime photo
What incoming med students should be doing before med school starts. Photo by Janitors

Listener Amanda is like many medical students–anxious and worried. In her case, she wonders if she won’t be as prepared for med school as her classmates when she starts in the fall, because they are “ahead” of her due to their experience and former careers.  We’ve got you, Amanda:  Aline Sandouk, Hillary O’brien, Erik Kneller, and Sanjeeva Weerasinghe are here to help.

Also, which of our hosts are on team Yannie or Laurel?  It doesn’t matter, because Dave did some sophisticated analysis and discovered something about the morphing audio clip that has the internet arguing again.

This Week in Medical News

The netflix series 13 Reasons Why returns for season 2 today as we record this, and Netflix has announced it’s response to mental health professionals’ concerns with the content.  Speaking of mental illness, Blue Cross Blue Shield has released a new study that says diagnoses of major depression are on the rise.  Henrietta Lacks–who was the unconsenting donor of the amazing HeLa cell line used for just about every kind of study of every kind of disease these days and whose descendents we spoke with in 2013now has a portrait in the National Portrait Gallery.

We Want to Hear From You

Do you have a question we can help answer?  Do you need advice?  We’re giving away answers for free (along with SCP key fobs)!  Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Relax or Prepare? Advice for Incoming Med Students

Family Strife, Chuck’s Pro-Life, & the Ebola Bureaucracy Knife

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Our Short Coat Podcast keyfob giveaway is still happening!  Post the show somewhere on the internet where pre-med and med students hang out, and email a screenshot to theshortcoats@gmail.com, and we’ll send you one with our thanks!

Our own Claire Castaneda won first place in the Carver College of Medicine’s Carol A. Bowman Creative Writing Contest for Medical Students, and her piece caught Dave’s eyes and heart.  She talks with Aline Sandouk, Melissa Chan, and Tony Rosenberg about the dynamics of family strife and the pressure they can exert to follow one career path over another.  Meanwhile, Aline expresses her feelings on being left behind by her original classmates as she continues her MD/PhD studies.

And considering that most doctors still don’t (and mostly, can’t) know much about how medical marijuana should be prescribed, Dave subjects his co-hosts to a pop quiz.

This Week in Medical News

NYU Langone Medical School lost two of their community to suicide in one week, in the ongoing tragedy of physician and student suicide.  What Maryland doctors could face as the bar for juries to decide medical malpractice is lowered.  Is Iowa’s US Senator Chuck Grassley, chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee, trying to pressure Supreme Court judges to retire in order to one day secure a Roe v. Wade busting win for pro-life conservatives?  Ebola is back, just in time for the Trump administration to dissolve the office responsible for preparing for pandemics.

We Want to Hear From You

Med school interview season is coming!  Can we help you with your med school admissions question? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

Continue reading Family Strife, Chuck’s Pro-Life, & the Ebola Bureaucracy Knife

Parenting Fails, Pro-Life Wins, Free Laser Gifts

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It’s time for a change, whether we want it or not.

Oh, gosh.  It’s Kaci McCleary and Amy Young’s last show as co-hosts.  Irisa Mahaparn and Teneme Konne join them to discuss their impending moves to Colorado and Minnesota. Also, they lament Iowa’s new Fetal Heartbeat Bill and what some observers believe will be an associated collapse of OB/Gyn in Iowa should the law go into effect.  But life goes on, and Amy–a relatively new parent–talks parenting fails.  Luckily for her little Sammy, and sadly for his own children, Dave has her beat.  And listener Corey reaches out on Facebook to tell Dave he’s wrong. Shocker.

Plus, Dave reveals how you can get free swag Dave made with frickin’ laser beams…listen to find out how.

This week in Medical News

Meanwhile, Indiana is recommending that it’s citizens get vaccinations before traveling to…Kentucky and Michigan?  Trump’s old doctor finally admits that his former patient really did dictate his note that praised the then-candidate’s health.  And the Golden State Killer is nabbed by a DNA ancestry website, while privacy advocates fret.

We Want to Hear from You

If you’re a future OB, are you concerned about or celebrating Iowa Republicans’ strategy to overturn Roe v. Wade? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com. Continue reading Parenting Fails, Pro-Life Wins, Free Laser Gifts

Emily Silverman, MD, and The Nocturnists

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A live stage show featuring the stories of healthcare providers is now a podcast you’ll love.

EMILY SILVERMAN, MD
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.

Continue reading Emily Silverman, MD, and The Nocturnists

Reactions, Reagents, and Repose

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How much is lab medicine a part of medical school?

laboratory test tubes photoRemembering a recent episode in which we spoke briefly of colored test tubes, Adee writes in with a question for Hilary O’Brien, Erik Kneller, Mackenzie Walhof, and Rob Humble–what, if anything, do medical students learn about laboratory science? And we got a lot of feedback on our recent discussion of unwanted sexual attention from patients, all of it pretty good!  Which is nice…thank you, listeners!

We also see if the co-hosts have the skillz needed to translate patients’ chief complaints into…well, something that resembles a chief complaint.

This Week in Medical News

Oh, patients.  You lying liars.  But  one company in nearby Coralville thinks they have cracked the code, and will offer a test that they promise will determine not just whether you’re lying about alcohol and tobacco use, but how much you’re lying.  And an Australian euthanasia advocate wants to give people the option to go beyond the veil (if that’s their wish) in a futuristic pod.

We Want to Hear From You

We give free (useful?) advice! Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

Continue reading Reactions, Reagents, and Repose