Tag Archives: admissions

Short Coat Podcast

Med School is SIMPLE?!

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“I honestly have had the most relaxing time I’ve had in forever, and for anybody who’s like, that’s ridiculous, just wait.”

  • The most charitable definition of a hot take is a position taken in order to generate conversation. The more usual definition is a position taken to create controversy (and clicks).
  • Dave asked his co-hosts to come with some hot takes, and it’s up to you to decide which definition they’re using, but PA1 Conner Lieser and M1s Radha Velamuri, Amanda Litka, and Sri Nandakumar offer their hot takes on how hard med school is, the admissions process, shadowing, advice from more advanced students, and more.

We Want to Hear From You: YOUR VOICE MATTERS!

We welcome your feedback, listener questions, and shower thoughts.  Do you agree or disagree with something we said today?  Did you hear something really helpful?  Can we answer a question for you? Are we delivering a podcast you want to keep listening to?  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”). Or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

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Short Coat Podcast

The True Value of Pre Med Shadowing

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Think of it as education you don’t have to pay for!

  • In an episode best described as…laid back?…calm?…sleepy?…Nicole, Alex, and Sarah discuss why those AdComm-required experiences are actually important.
  • Both the colleges and the applicants themselves benefit from them, but in the rush to ‘get them over with,’ their utility gets overlooked.
  • Instead, they’re often seen by applicants as a means to an end, not an end in and of themselves.

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 We do more things on…

Continue reading The True Value of Pre Med Shadowing →
Short Coat Podcast

Medical School Hot Takes, Part 2

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More possibly terrible ideas about how the world should work

  • Dave and Riley enjoyed the first hot takes episode so much, they decided to do a follow up of those they didn’t get to.
  • Aline, Alec, and Miranda join in, with their takes: no medical students who haven’t failed, Tik Tok filters are doing to damage to children’s brains, students lie about their ability to hear heart murmurs, and more.
  • Listener and US Marine Tanner writes in to ask about his undergraduate education plan as his military service draws to a close, but Dave has concerns about how admissions committees will view undergrad education at a for-profit institution.

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 Medical School Hot Takes, Part 2 →
Short Coat Podcast

Recess Rehash: When Life Is Getting In the Way of Med School: the Value of the Tactical Retreat.

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Save Your Resources to Fight Another Day

TL;DR

  • Medical school is all-consuming, but sometimes you need to take time to deal with the slings and arrows of life.
  • Don’t be afraid that you’ll jeopardize your career by taking a leave during medical school. Better to do it before your situation causes harm to your test scores or grades.
  • A Brown University study finds that schools are failing in their diversity goals for admitting URMs.

We’re on a holiday break, but we’ll be back next week. Until then, enjoy this rerun.

Poking around on Reddit’s r/medschool, Dave found a rather desperate message from an M3 who’s life is collapsing around him–death, marriage troubles, family illnesses, and all at the same time. so much so that Dave fears their progress might suffer. Is it time for what a military commander might call a “tactical retreat?” Note: Dave isn’t really sure of the technical definition of a tactical retreat, but let’s just say it’s about stepping back and conserving your resources until the situation becomes more favorable to your goals. It’s a metaphor, go with it.

And co-hosts Aline Sandouk (MD/PhD), Nicole Hines (M1), AJ Chowdhury (M1), and Miranda Schene (MD/PhD) discuss the disappointing news that medical schools have made negative progress in attaining diversity goals for students underrepresented in medicine, despite years of effort.

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: When Life Is Getting In the Way of Med School: the Value of the Tactical Retreat. →
Short Coat Podcast

When Life Is Getting In the Way of Med School: the Value of the Tactical Retreat.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:34 — 58.2MB)

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Save Your Resources to Fight Another Day

TL;DR

  • Medical school is all-consuming, but sometimes you need to take time to deal with the slings and arrows of life.
  • Don’t be afraid that you’ll jeopardize your career by taking a leave during medical school. Better to do it before your situation causes harm to your test scores or grades.
  • A Brown University study finds that schools are failing in their diversity goals for admitting URMs.

Poking around on Reddit’s r/medschool, Dave found a rather desperate message from an M3 who’s life is collapsing around him–death, marriage troubles, family illnesses, and all at the same time. so much so that Dave fears their progress might suffer. Is it time for what a military commander might call a “tactical retreat?” Note: Dave isn’t really sure of the technical definition of a tactical retreat, but let’s just say it’s about stepping back and conserving your resources until the situation becomes more favorable to your goals. It’s a metaphor, go with it.

And co-hosts Aline Sandouk (MD/PhD), Nicole Hines (M1), AJ Chowdhury (M1), and Miranda Schene (MD/PhD) discuss the disappointing news that medical schools have made negative progress in attaining diversity goals for students underrepresented in medicine, despite years of effort.

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 When Life Is Getting In the Way of Med School: the Value of the Tactical Retreat. →
Short Coat Podcast

AMA: Racism is a Public health Threat. SCP Co-hosts: Gosh, really?

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[This episode is sponsored by Panacea Financial, a Division of Sonabank, Member FDIC. Please support our sponsor by visiting https://panaceafinancial.com/]

In mid-November, the American Medical Association declared racism to be a public health threat. With that declaration, they adopted policies to acknowledge and recognize racism as detrimental to the health and well-being of all of America’s citizens, and to encourage the study of its effects and the creation of medical education curricula.

Great! But this week’s co-hosts, Nathen Spitz, Aline Sandouk, Sahaana Arumugam, and Ananya Munjal, have mixed feelings and hope that the AMA won’t be among the many institutions that have made similar declarations without taking real action.

But first, listener Malcolm wrote in to theshortcoats@gmail.com to ask how he might take advantage of his fortunate position as the holder of multiple acceptances to medical school in negotiating for financial aid. The co-hosts have definitely got some advice, based mostly upon our fantasies of being in the same position.

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!

Short Coat Podcast

Quality over Quantity: Clinical Experiences and Volunteering in COVID Times

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[This episode is sponsored by Panacea Financial, a Division of Sonabank, Member FDIC. Please support our sponsor by visiting https://panaceafinancial.com/]

The Short Coats have begun livestreaming their recordings in our Facebook group (most Fridays at noon central–join us and be a part of the show). Listeners Garrett and Isaac wrote in with questions about the clinical hours schools want from their applicants. How important is the number of hours, asked Garrett, and what changes in that number are schools making in COVID times? Lucky for you, gentlemen, MD/PhD student Aline Sandouk, M3 Emma Barr, and M1s Alex Belzer and AJ Chowdhury are on the show to suss it out for you. Plus, we provide some suggestions for alternatives if the usual activities just aren’t available to you. And livestream viewer Cierra asks how we think this year’s experiences will change medical education. Did we learn new things about how to deliver medical education? Are students less prepared than they would otherwise have been?

A couple shows ago, Dave indulged himself in a rant about Americans’ seeming inability to follow best practices for spreading COVID, basically saying those folks are wimps. But a recent editorial in MedPageToday.com makes him reconsider his delivery.

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!

rerun, Short Coat Podcast

Recess Rehash: What Med Schools Miss Out On Because of “Technical Standards”

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Diversity includes disability

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Photo by b_lumenkraft

[We took a break last week, so here’s a rerun in case you missed it!]

Dr. Marley Doyle is a reproductive psychiatrist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.  She’s also “legally blind”, with 20/400 vision.  She struggled through medical school just like all med students, but with that additional complication.  She made it, however, and her discussion with Aditi Patel and Irisa Mahaparn gives some clues as to why.  First, her disability was invisible which made it easy for people to assume that she wasn’t disabled.  And second, she was naive to the fact that she could ask for help.  In other words, she stumbled through it all and came out the other side without having been a “burden” for her school. Years later, she acknowledges that she could have asked for more help.

We also discuss the technical standards that most schools have in place to define what a student physician should be able to do physically, intellectually, and emotionally to succeed in school.  These standards, however, often seem to be written with a stereotypical disabled person in mind, one who cannot possible succeed because of their disability, and thus should not be in medical school.  We discuss the concept of “assumed competence” which, as  recent CCOM guest lecturer Dr. Oluwaferanmi Okanlami pointed out, allows people with disabilities to show they are able to fulfill their duties as opposed to assuming they cannot.  And we discuss the AAMC’s recent first-of-its-kind report “Accessibility, Inclusion, and Action in Medical Education Lived Experiences of Learners and Physicians With Disabilities,” which brought to light the inconsistent policies and procedures for, lack of support of, and lack of awareness many schools have of their legal obligations under the law towards students with disabilities.  And we talk about why med schools that don’t encourage disabled people to apply are missing out on a piece of the diversity puzzle.

Plus, Dr. Doyle helps answer a listener who is lucky enough to have several med school acceptances, and wants to know how to decide among them!  Lucky you, ‘Anxious Premed!’  Don’t worry, we can help.

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!

We Want to Hear From You

Are you living with a disability and discouraged about your med school plans?  Are you in medical school, disabled, and have some advice to offer? Tell us about it by calling 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Recess Rehash: What Med Schools Miss Out On Because of “Technical Standards” →

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A Tinkle In Our Pants and A Song In Our Hearts

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pants photoThis week, with help from LJ Agostinelli, Irisa Mahaparn, and new co-host Fili Bogdanic, Dave offers listener Karstan some advice for med students (and others) who want to start a podcast.  It’s a worthwhile activity, without question, for discovering and understanding the field you’re growing into, provided you can find the time!

Listener Coleman writes in to find out what kind of plan we’d suggest having for visiting medical schools.  Dave has ideas…but to his surprise his co-hosts weren’t even sure pre-interview visits were necessary!  Vive la difference!

And we once again plumb the depths of Yahoo! Answers for some real-life medical questions, the excuse Dave always gives for doing this to his co-hosts.

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

To Dave’s relief, scientists have found that declines in working memory can be temporarily reversed using transcranial alternating-current stimulation, but to his eternal dismay, his co-hosts always…uh, the always…wait, what was I writing about?

We Want to Hear From You

What would you do to increase your working memory? Let us know that, or anything else by calling 347-SHORTCT anytime, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading A Tinkle In Our Pants and A Song In Our Hearts →

Short Coat Podcast

What Med Schools Miss Out On Because of “Technical Standards”

Audio
Share

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:20 — 76.0MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS | More

Diversity includes disability

halt photo
Photo by b_lumenkraft

Dr. Marley Doyle is a reproductive psychiatrist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.  She’s also “legally blind”, with 20/400 vision.  She struggled through medical school just like all med students, but with that additional complication.  She made it, however, and her discussion with Aditi Patel and Irisa Mahaparn gives some clues as to why.  First, her disability was invisible which made it easy for people to assume that she wasn’t disabled.  And second, she was naive to the fact that she could ask for help.  In other words, she stumbled through it all and came out the other side without having been a “burden” for her school. Years later, she acknowledges that she could have asked for more help.

We also discuss the technical standards that most schools have in place to define what a student physician should be able to do physically, intellectually, and emotionally to succeed in school.  These standards, however, often seem to be written with a stereotypical disabled person in mind, one who cannot possible succeed because of their disability, and thus should not be in medical school.  We discuss the concept of “assumed competence” which, as  recent CCOM guest lecturer Dr. Oluwaferanmi Okanlami pointed out, allows people with disabilities to show they are able to fulfill their duties as opposed to assuming they cannot.  And we discuss the AAMC’s recent first-of-its-kind report “Accessibility, Inclusion, and Action in Medical Education Lived Experiences of Learners and Physicians With Disabilities,” which brought to light the inconsistent policies and procedures for, lack of support of, and lack of awareness many schools have of their legal obligations under the law towards students with disabilities.  And we talk about why med schools that don’t encourage disabled people to apply are missing out on a piece of the diversity puzzle.

Plus, Dr. Doyle helps answer a listener who is lucky enough to have several med school acceptances, and wants to know how to decide among them!  Lucky you, ‘Anxious Premed!’  Don’t worry, we can help.

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!

We Want to Hear From You

Are you living with a disability and discouraged about your med school plans?  Are you in medical school, disabled, and have some advice to offer? Tell us about it by calling 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading What Med Schools Miss Out On Because of “Technical Standards” →