“Any serious examination of epidemic disease has always shown that microbes also make a preferential option for the poor. But medicine and its practitioners, even in public health, do so all too rarely.” -Paul Farmer, MD, PhD. From left to right: Petra Hahn, Greg Yungtum, Paul Farmer, Katie Ryken, Josh Bleicher, and Jordan Harbaugh-Williams Dr. Paul Farmer is sort of the rock god of global health. He’s an incredibly busy and influential guy, so when he flew in from Liberia to spend the entire day here with us at the Carver College of Medicine, it wasn’t easy to keep the stars from our eyes. Of course, he’s a physician, but he’s also a medical anthropologist, chief of Brigham and Women’s Division of Global Health Equity, professor of medicine at Harvard, and the UN Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Community Based Medicine and Lessons from Haiti. One of the things you notice about Dr. Farmer is that although he’s clearly a celebrity in his field, it doesn’t dampen his enthusiasm, idealism, and the pleasure he takes in meeting students who share his passion for understanding and changing how healthcare is delivered to the world’s neediest people. Continue reading Dr. Paul Farmer and Liberation Medicine→
Dave and Emily White, fresh from the University of Iowa Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology’s yearly 4Cast conference, talk about their presentation on the podcast, which was fun. And they, along with Rob Humble and Doug Russo, talk about the President’s recent State of the Union address, including the so-called “moonshot” to cure cancer. Can that even work? Rob takes issue with the whole moonshot comparison.
John Pienta, Cole Cheney, Amy Young, and newbie Rob Humble join Dave to discuss the recent winter break, the Rose Bowl, and Stanford’s half-time band performance. We discuss doctors who are non-compliant with their own recommendations for patients. Is that something they should be condemned for, or is it human nature? And when patients are non-compliant or engage in risky behavior, should docs acknowledge that as normal human behavior and avoid shaming them for it? Continue reading Normalizing Human Behavior, Transvaginal Speakers, and Deflating Outsized Egos→
Cole Cheney returns from our state capital, where he’s been doing his clerkships at our kind-of satellite campus (more about this program specifically is here, if you’re interested). He and Kaci McCleary, John Pienta, and Rachel Schenkel talk about the differences between doing rotations in a teaching hospital and doing them in a community hospital. For example, how are community hospital patients different? And in that setting, what does it really mean if your patient is non-compliant? Cole reveals that he’s ‘afraid’ he’s going to love psychiatry and wants to know: are other students also wary of the specialty? We talk about the downsides of the field, as well as the rather big professional and caregiving upsides. Continue reading Losing the white coat, psych fears, and Internet questions answered→
After Martin Shkreli’s arrest, John Pienta, Marc Toral, Greg Woods, and Amy Young, discuss why Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli is so hated, given that capitalist enterprises have profit as their overarching goal–hasn’t he just done his job? Meanwhile, two ongoing clinical trials have been experimenting on human subjects without consent. Those subjects: residents and their patients. The experiment: what happens if hospitals return to the longer hours that prevailed for residents before they were restricted in 2011? We explore the limitations of consent, residents’ satisfaction with their working conditions, how many residents may not feel that restricting their hours is best for their patients, and what working and being a patient at an academic medical center means.
Second-years Kaci McCleary, Marc Toral, Corbin Weaver, and Aline Sandouk are about to finish their didactic studies in the curriculum and embark on their clinical clerkships! At long last, they get to work with patients. Among the questions they face: is it better to put yourself out there during clerkships? Or keep your head down? And are they nervous? Maybe a little, but there was plenty of health news this week to distract themselves with, including a Harvard study that provides evidence that one’s stress and one’s health may be unrelated.
Even though Dave’s in NYC, he still finds a way to call it in (pun intended) for a show with Kaci McCleary, Corbin Weaver, John Pienta, and Jason Lewis. We discuss the possibility that most medical abstracts are at best wishful thinking and at worst fraudulent. And speaking of research, physicians get it together to petition congress to start treating gun violence as a fundable research topic for the CDC. Continue reading Guns and Research→
Thanksgiving happened last week, so enjoy this re-run! This time, Dave is on vacation, but John Pienta, Aline Sandouk, Cole Cheney, and Kaci McCleary didn’t let that stop them. Thanks to Intern Cory, they were able to carry on without him (*sniff*). Kaci and Aline review their first year: was it fun? I bet you know the answer to that one. How did it change them? What did they discover during the experience? How did they cope? What choices did they make, and how did that affect their well-being? And John and Cole clue them on what they’ll face next year. Continue reading Recess Rehash: Recorded in the Nude→
Cthurkey lives! Photo by @damana, used with permission.
This Thanksgiving, why not enjoy a Cthurkey while you contemplate the many health hazards embodied by America’s favorite celebration of gluttony? And if you are a future radiologist, you might be as demoralized as Ellie Ginn, Tony Rosenberg, Dylan Todd, and Kaci McCleary were to learn about a UIowa/UC-Davis study that finds pigeons are just as good at it as you’ll ever be.
