Merry Christmas, if that’s your thing. This week, Aline Sandouk, Lisa Wehr, Greg Woods, and Kaci McCleary ponder the prevalence of psychological issues among doctors. It turns out, they’re messed up, especially surgeons. Keep away from those guys, unless you need a transplant. Continue reading Doctor Psychopath Will See You Now→
The U.S. has recently (and not-so-recently) been rocked by the killings of black men by police; these events have spawned protests, among them the die-ins at medical schools around the country. Students Ben Quarshie, Kaci McCleary, Lisa Wehr, Greg Woods, and Aline Sandouk discuss these events, how non-minorities can take part in the conversation without screwing it up, and why these events are important to medical students. Continue reading Privilege, Racism, and Allies→
This time, Greg Woods, Aline Sandouk, Ethan Craig, Kaci McCleary, and Cole Cheney talk about the medical student humblebrag, as well as the score-comparison conversations that happen after exams, this despite the common reassurance from administrators and professors that these scores aren’t the most important thing about one’s medical school experience. Continue reading The Med Student Humblebrag→
Dr. Denny and nurse Paula Lofstrum are a pair of true medical missionaries who have spent many years traveling the world from Antarctica to Guatemala to Tanzania. Their journey together began in the late 1980s, when they embarked on a mission to Guatemala with a team of healthcare professionals. It was the first of several trips to Guatemala until, in the early 2000s, they were asked by a colleague to visit Iambi Tanzania in East Africa.
It was there that the Lofstrums would discover a new chapter in their mission work. In 2006 they formed International Health Partners in the US and Tanzania, which works to improve healthcare for the people of Tanzania. Students Kurt Wall, Miles Greenwald, and Brandon Lyle talk to the Lofstrums about their work.
Happy Thanksgiving! Have a heaping slice of Greg Woods, Lisa Wehr, Cole Cheney, and Corbin Weaver who cover the attention Mattel’s Barbie is getting for being a shockingly bad computer engineer, and whether and how this sort of bias against the competence of women appears in medical education. Continue reading Barbie is a Terrible Computer Engineer→
This week, Dave begs listeners for reviews at Stitcher and iTunes, because he craves validation. And a listener tip (thanks, Twitter’s @Brady_Campbell) led Cole Cheney, Keenan Laraway, Matt Maves and Greg Woods to a discussion of one doctor’s campaign to get her colleagues to embrace total transparency–financial relationships with drug companies, personal values, the works. Could it lead to more trusting doctor-patient relationship, or is it completely unworkable? And why did the mere suggestion of such a thing inspire such a vitriolic backlash from her colleagues? Continue reading Is Total Transparency the Best Medicine?→
Corbin Weaver, Kaci McCleary, Lisa Wehr, Greg Woods, Ben Quarshie and Cole Cheney were all available for podcasting this week, so I match them with their celebrity look-alikes. Also, we announce an internship for Iowa pre-meds, something we’re very excited about. We talk about Brittany Maynard’s decision to move to Oregon so that she could be in a position to end her suffering from glioblastoma by taking advantage of Oregon’s Death with Dignity law. Continue reading Celebrity Look-Alikes→
This week’s show, featuring Cole Cheney, Willis Hong, Lisa Wehr, and Matt Maves, was recorded on Halloween so just pretend it’s a week ago. Lisa couldn’t stay for the whole thing—she had to leave for a test—and without her moderating influence the show turned into a bro-cast. Cole isn’t happy with Ebola-quarantined Maine nurse Kaci Hickox and her bike rides while quarantined, but Dave argues that perhaps nurses are pushing back against the political maneuverings of certain governors in public health issues, and the blame that the CDC and the media have been putting on them for the Dallas Presbyterian Hospital’s handling of the Eric Duncan’s Ebola fiasco. Continue reading Halloween Bro Cast→
This week on The Short Coat Podcast, Lisa Wehr, Cole Cheney, Zhi Xiong, and Greg Woods are back with this week’s completely inadvertent theme: odoriferous treatments. Also we talk about how medical students do a lot of staring at the bark and missing the trees, and the scandalous and sexist mnemonics used in medical school for all that bark staring. Dave looks forward to the delivery of his iPad Air 2 and ditching his 2010 iPad 2 because iOS 8 destroyed it. U2’s Bono reveals that his silly glasses are a treatment for his glaucoma, making everyone feel bad for thinking he was just trying and failing to look cool. There is a evolutionary reason for the thick male skull, which seems to coincide with the appearance of The Three Stooges on the fossil record. Cole reveals he’s a beta male as evidenced by his reaction to blood draws, and how this reaction perpetuates the survival of the species. A British man fakes a 2-year coma to avoid court. Proposals for a robot force to deal with Ebola. The University of Exeter isolates a compound from the smell of flatulence that they think will treat diseases that are mediated by damage to mitochondria. Researchers peg when adult humans gained lactase and thus the ability to process milk, and as a result we are thankful that Lisa grew up on a dairy farm and explains why and how adults grew to do that. Scientists discover that our skin contains odor receptors, and a man with a spinal injury gets cells from his olfactory bulb transplanted into his spine and regains motion and sensation.
Big Boobs Matter Most (I swear, that’s the title of the article, don’t fire me)
It’s our 50th episode, and students Lisa Wehr, Matt Maves, Greg Woods, Cole Cheney, and Deep Bhat are on hand, and admissions recruiter Amy A’hearn stops by to address a listener’s Moment of Truth: are overseas medical mission trips still a good idea when you’re looking to add a little something to your CV as you prepare to apply to med school? She says, sure, but there are some gotchas you need to know about. Also, Facebook and Apple cover the costs for female employees to freeze their eggs. The first baby born from a transplanted uterus is doing fine. Withdrawal symptoms due to a Google Glass addiction are mistaken for alcohol withdrawal. Breast cancer awareness campaigns—are they trivializing with humor a serious disease? A woman’s “cheese slid off her cracker,” resulting in a fugue state that lasts 2400 miles, but shows that people are still looking out for each other. A berry’s juice, applied to some cancers, make them disappear, but (because Mother Nature hates us) it’s a pretty rare berry. Long Islanders’ are becoming allergic to red meat due to tick bites. We succumb to the Ebola coverage epidemic raging through America.