Category Archives: Short Coat Podcast

All episodes of the Short Coat Podcast.

Short Coat Podcast

Tests, Tact, and Turpentine

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Everyone gets anxious about tests.  And med school features a lot of tests.

chemicals photoThe news that students at Oregon Health and Science University will now be subject to ‘compassion tests‘  in order to graduate got Dave thinking about test anxiety.  As schools pile on the examinations, how do students deal with the stress?  Dabin Choi, Gabe Conley, Claire Casteneda, and Erik Kneller discuss meditation, sleep, prayer, and eating habits that keep them from letting the fear derail them.

Also in the news, a GQ interview with comedian and actress Tiffany Haddish espouses an unusual cure-all the government doesn’t want us to know about: a teaspoon of turpentine.  Can this week’s co-hosts do her one better by convincing Dave that the effects of various other household and industrial chemicals are government-suppressed remedies?

This Week in Medical News

Why can’t Dave stop himself from succumbing to the lure of science’s newest form of clickbait: the ‘we-found-a-new-organ’ article? One man’s sexually transmitted disease clearly made the BBC’s headline editor clap his hands together with a gleeful tactlessness.

We Want to Hear From You

Do you suffer from severe test anxiety?  What do you do for it? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com!

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Short Coat Podcast

The Truth About “Primary Care” Statistics

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How to Think About Med Schools’ Primary Care Statistics

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Doug E Fresh Photo by Jason Persse

Listener Lavender BloodPoison (not their real name) sent us a message saying they were impressed by CCOM’s Primary Care residency match statistics.  And while many schools that serve states like ours do love primary care, “there are lies, damn lies, and statistics,” as the saying goes.  How should one interpret match statistics in light of the fact that many who appear to match in primary care will go on to specialize after their first year residency?  Lisa Wehr, Teneme Konne, Aline Sandouk, Amy Young, and Kaci McCleary are here to drop some truths about the so-called “Dean’s Lie” (less a lie as much as it is a truth that doesn’t tell the whole story).

Also, Meldor returns to give us an update (congratulations, Meldor!), though we mourn losing her to another school.  So we console ourselves by dishing on the medical scientist training program lifestyle.

This Week in Medical News

A program that uses hip hop to educate black youth and their parents on stroke is showing some successes.  The new CDC director has a shady research past.  Surgery centers are getting some attention as  risky places to get surgery.  And as promised, we go over some Match 2018 statistics.

We Want to Hear From You

Why is primary care or specializing attractive to you? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  We love your comments and questions!

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Short Coat Podcast

Putting the Anxiety Cart Before the Horse

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Anxiety about your competitive specialty ambitions in your first year isn’t worth it.

anxiety photoListener Luis wrote in expressing his anxiety that his med school–which he’ll begin attending this fall–doesn’t have the prestige or programs to support his desire for a competitive specialty like ophthalmology.   If that’s the case, he wondered, what can he do to increase his chances of obtaining his dream career?  Fortunately for Luis, Irisa Mahaparn, Gabe Conley, Brendan George, Jason Lewis, and new co-host Andres Dajles were on hand to give Luis the advice and encouragement he needs…and a tiny dose of tough love, too.

Also, Dave indulges in his interest in tech startup culture by having his co-hosts pitch to him random product ideas for random people.

This Week in Medical News

Did an astronaut’s genetic code change after being in space?  Of course not.  Should med students upgrade their stupid brains with “cognitive prosthetic” implants?  Anything to pass that test!  Should Dave have his brain turned to glass when his stupid body is ready to kick it so he can be uploaded to the cloud someday?  Er…ask again later?

We Want to Hear From You

Would you get a chip in your head if it made you a better student?  Or is there a line you just won’t cross? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

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Short Coat Podcast

Lack of Empathy: A Med School Dealbreaker?

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Everyone knows: doctors have to have empathy…right?

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Photo by Pierre Phaneuf

Listener Mo wrote to us at theshortcoats@gmail.com to ask us if a lack of interest in dealing with the foibles of patients–with their anti-vaccine beliefs, their non-compliance with treatment, and reliance on the latest internet fads–means he should reconsider his med school dreams.  Lucky for Mo, Kaci McCleary, Irisa Mahaparn, and newbs Melissa Chan and Dabin Choi were on hand to propose some paths forward for non-empathetic med school applicants, as well as outlining some of the less obvious areas empathy comes in handy they might want to think about.  There isn’t a lot of wiggle room in this area…but there’s a little, and maybe Mo can squeeze into those cracks and come out with an MD on the other side.

This Week in Medical News

Is the ubiquity of IV saline an example of institutional inertia?  And in response to this article, the gang explores the institutional and systemic barriers that AMCAS and some schools’ admissions committees have erected against disadvantaged students.

We Want to Hear From You

Are you a disadvantaged applicant worried about your grades, money, and connections? Tell us your story at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

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rerun, Short Coat Podcast

Recess Rehash: Bropocalypse 2017

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The national #MeToo conversation continues

creepy man photo[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.

We Want to Hear From You

Your thoughts and comments are important to us!  Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

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Short Coat Podcast

How Med Student Parents Make It Happen

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Can you be a parent while you’re in medical school?

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Photo by tvdflickr

Listener Courtney, a 26-year-old mother of three wants to know if her med school dream is even possible.  Obviously this is a two-part question since there are both moms and dads to consider, so we’ll have a mom on a future show to help.  But first, Gabe Conley, Marissa Evers, Joyce “Spicy” Wahba, and Kaci McCleary invited 2004 CCOM grad Dr. Tom McNalley on the show to represent the dads.  Tom was 39 with three kids of his own and a wife who was working towards her PhD when he entered med school.  We’ll find out how they did it.

After that, Dave and the gang do a little introspection in the way that medical students often are asked to do: by taking personality tests and comparing their results.

This Week in Medical News

Did you know that you can rent a human head?  We didn’t know either.  Did you know you can rent a HIV- or hep C-infected human head?  You can, if you were unwise enough to rent from these people.  And a man who needed a kidney found one at the happiest place on earth, sort of.

We Want to Hear From You

Have doubts about your coming med school journey? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  We can help.

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Short Coat Podcast

Tales from the Clinic: from Theory to Practice

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There is nothing to fear but fear itself.

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Photo by amountaineer

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.

This Week in Medical News

The nation’s largest health insurer, Aetna, wants patients to diagnose themselves and risk huge ER bills if they get it wrong.  We recap the work of our own Sarah Ziegenhorn and her non-profit Iowa Harm Reduction Coalition, which is on the forefront of needle exchange efforts in Iowa.  The DEA is relaxing rules that prevented many healthcare workers from prescribing treatment to opioid addiction sufferers.  And we look at the tiny, cute robots that may one day crawl, tumble, and wiggle around your insides like an over-active inchworm.

We Want to Hear From You

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.

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Short Coat Podcast

Refusing to Treat: A Collision of Medicine and Conscience

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Do doctors need protection from having to provide treatments they don’t believe in?

genetic photoDuring Human Rights Week at the Carver College of Medicine, we heard some hard truths from national news commentator, human rights activist, and podcaster Angela Rye. In her speech to the College of Medicine, she clued white people in on what black Americans face every day in 2017.  She also pointed out that Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech was just the beginning of his activism.  Meanwhile,  Mackenzie Walhof, Joyce Wahb, Claire Casteneda, and Gabe Conley discuss the department of Health and Human Services announcement that it would be forming a department to protect doctors from having their religious rights infringed. Do doctors need protection so they can refuse to treat as a matter of conscience?  Or do they self-select what they do and don’t do by where they practice and what they specialize in?

And with the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in the history books, Dave delivers a pop quiz to see if his co-hosts can identify real or fake health-adjacent gadgets.

This Week in Medical News

The march of genetic medicine continues, as the NIH has given the green light to using CRISPR to modify cancer patients’ T-cells ex vivo, hoping to turn them into killers of myeloma, sarcoma, and melanoma.  And Walmart is going to do its part in the fight against opioid addiction by including in prescriptions a substance that destroys leftover opioids when patients are done with them, for free.

We Want to Hear From You

Are you ready to patent Dave’s inventions?  Do you think docs need to be protected by the government from their patients’ needs? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

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Short Coat Podcast

Checking the Boxes: Should You Give Up Your Job To Do Research?

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Sometimes the requirements aren’t required.

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“I love my work.” Photo by Smithsonian Institution

Annie wrote in to theshortcoats@gmail.com to ask Kaci McCleary, Erik Kneller, Gabriel Conley, and Marissa Evers if she should give up her 10-year job as a radiology tech so she’d have time to do research before applying to medical school.  As is often the case with these kinds of questions, the answer is no!  But maybe yes.  In some cases.

Later in the show, we say to hell with this brave new world of collaboration-not-competition, and battle to the death!   Will neurotoxin triumph over infinite sausage?

This Week in Medical News

We discuss the recent Medscape Physician Lifestyle and Happiness Report and find out who will be happier: neurologist Kaci, or urologist Gabe.  Also, we find out what they will drive, and how many friends they won’t have.  A Pennsylvania Democrat introduces The Stable Genius Act (tempting…). And we find out how the weather and the holidays impacts the blood supply and what the Red Cross wants you to do about it (hint: it involves giving blood now).

We Want to Hear From You

It’s coming up on application season!  What questions do you have? Is our advice to Annie useful or rueful? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.   Continue reading Checking the Boxes: Should You Give Up Your Job To Do Research? →

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Short Coat Podcast

Taking Advice is Hard To Do

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Giving advice is easy.  Taking it?  Not so much.

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Photo by Maurits Verbiest

Listener Arman calls back to thank us for some good advice we gave him on continuing his hobbies and interests outside medical school!  Nevertheless, he notes how difficult it often is to take advice, even when we want it, and wonders if we know why?  Of course we do, and Levi Endelman, Tony Rosenberg, Mark Moubarek, and Rob Humble are willing to advise him.  And Samuel paints doctors with a broad brush when he writes to tell us his worries about the kinds of people who go to medical school and the sorts of things they do when they get those precious letters after their names and the prestige to go with them.

This Week in Medical News

The WHO and others are ready to add ‘gaming disorder‘ to the International Classification of Diseases, to the dismay of many experts (and little ol’ us).  And researchers in India are taking a 2014 internet hoax to its logical conclusion and trying to decide if ‘selfitis‘ (the obsessive taking of selfies) is a real concern, as well as how people use them to prop themselves up.

We Want to Hear From You

Wanna show us your best duck-lips selfie?  Need some advice that you won’t take? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

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