Tag Archives: advice

Standing Out by Presenting at Conferences

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You want a piece of me, perfesser? Photo by Internet Archive Book Images

Second year students Abby Fyfe, Mason LaMarche, and Madeline Cusimano offer their advice to first-year Morgan Kennedy, who confesses that she’s feeling the burn of being an M1.  And Mason discusses the opportunities he’s had to present his undergraduate work at conferences, a good way to stand out from other pre-medical applicants.  And it doesn’t have to be bench or clinical science, either, as Mason demonstrates.

Plus, Dave pretends to be a medical educator with a game he calls MegaBattle.  Can his co-hosts help their professors defeat a variety of creatures with strange powers?


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

A Venezuelan telenovela is being chopped up and overdubbed to deliver public health messages in Africa.  Migrant children detained in the US are battling preventable diseases as Customs and Border Patrol throws up their hands at the complexity of offering vaccinations to that population.  And a childhood cancer drug–the only on that exists–is in short supply in the US because it’s hard for Pfizer to turn a profit on it.

We Want to Hear From You

What are you struggling with? We can help–call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime or email theshortcoats@gmail.com!

Continue reading Standing Out by Presenting at Conferences

Recess Rehash: Your Romance Could End In Tears, But It Doesn’t Have To!

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Your Relationship Can Endure Med School…If You Plan Ahead.

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Photo by JohnnyLCY

[It’s summer, and the living is easy.  In other words, we’re taking a break this week, so enjoy this recent episode instead of a new one!]

We’re devoting this episode to the perils of love between med students and their non-medical partners.  Despite the clickbait title (don’t hate the player, hate the game), it isn’t destined to end badly!  It just takes lots and lots of patience, communication, and sacrifice, not to mention a plan.  Kelsey Adler, Madeline Slater, Terry Hayes, and new co-host Chris Schanbacher–all married or in committed relationships with people who aren’t medical learners–are ready to offer an anonymous listener advice on keeping love alive with her soon-to-be med student.  Plus, we talk about how med students socialize, how “their persons” can join in some of the more fun bits, and what changes significant others can expect to change about their relationships.

To cap off their hard-earned words of wisdom, Dave decided to see how close his co-hosts and their “persons” really are, with a bit of fun we’re calling The NewlyMed Game.  Will each couples’ answers to Dave’s questions agree?  Will their loving relationships dissolve in acrimony when they disagree?  That’s a chance Dave’s willing to take!


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 dating a medical student?  What advice do you have for others? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Recess Rehash: Your Romance Could End In Tears, But It Doesn’t Have To!

Your Romance Could End In Tears, But It Doesn’t Have To!

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Your Relationship Can Endure Med School…If You Plan Ahead.

love photo
Photo by JohnnyLCY

We’re devoting this episode to the perils of love between med students and their non-medical partners.  Despite the clickbait title (don’t hate the player, hate the game), it isn’t destined to end badly!  It just takes lots and lots of patience, communication, and sacrifice, not to mention a plan.  Kelsey Adler, Madeline Slater, Terry Hayes, and new co-host Chris Schanbacher–all married or in committed relationships with people who aren’t medical learners–are ready to offer an anonymous listener advice on keeping love alive with her soon-to-be med student.  Plus, we talk about how med students socialize, how “their persons” can join in some of the more fun bits, and what changes significant others can expect to change about their relationships.

To cap off their hard-earned words of wisdom, Dave decided to see how close his co-hosts and their “persons” really are, with a bit of fun we’re calling The NewlyMed Game.  Will each couples’ answers to Dave’s questions agree?  Will their loving relationships dissolve in acrimony when they disagree?  That’s a chance Dave’s willing to take!


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 dating a medical student?  What advice do you have for others? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Your Romance Could End In Tears, But It Doesn’t Have To!

Getting there from here, a novel recipe, and future projects

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Drawing by Annie Rempel.

[We’re now available on Spotify and RadioPublic!]

Co-hosts Tim Maxwell, Aline Sandouk, Annie Rempel, and Mackenzie Walhof confront pictures of their younger selves and offer themselves the advice they should have gotten at the start of their med school journeys. Listener Darius asks us for the best options to progress from his current work as an EMT-B/paramedic to medical school–among our suggestions is to check out the AAMC’s list of post-baccalaureate programs, including Iowa State University’s excellent but reasonably-priced option.  Dave offers up his own Recipe for Med School Success–a concoction he’s pretty sure no-one has ever thought of, but which his skeptical co-hosts end up enjoying–and promises an e-book with them all!  Submit yours to be part of it and get it free!

Annie also tells us about her recent arts-and-medicine exhibit at The Examined Life Conference, called Snapshots.  A follow-up to her Stanford Honors in the Arts show, it’s a series of drawings and interviews offering “realistic glimpses into the inspirational life stories of those affected by Huntington’s Disease.”

We Want to Hear From You

What’s your favorite weird snack? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

Continue reading Getting there from here, a novel recipe, and future projects

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!

Continue reading Taking Advice is Hard To Do

The Doctor Is In: Ryan Gray Lifts Up the Next Generation of Medical Students

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gray2Ryan Gray, MD,  was a physician in the Air Force. He’d planned all along to be an orthopaedic surgeon…but the military had other plans for him: aerospace medicine.  Later, when a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis forced him to give up flying, his career plans changed once again, and he decided to set aside the practice of medicine to focus his growing business as the proprietor of MedicalSchoolHQ.net where he advises pre-medical students on their efforts to get into medical school. He’s also a podcaster in that vein, as the host of The Premed Years podcast, the OldPreMeds Podcast, and The MCAT Podcast. As Dave, Nicole Morrow, Amy Hansen, Alex Volkmar, and Tony Rosenberg found, not only is Dr. Gray a thoughtful adviser, but he’s a lot of fun to talk to.  His thoughts on being a non-traditional medical student (he was one himself), the efforts of some schools to create competency- and systems-based curricula instead of exam-based curricula, and the types of students admissions committees are most interested in are definitely worth knowing.  And check out Dr. Gray’s new book, The Premed Playbook: Guide to the Medical School Interview. Continue reading The Doctor Is In: Ryan Gray Lifts Up the Next Generation of Medical Students

Advice for the Young At Heart

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Photo by laughlin

Dylan Todd, Marc Toral, Eric Wilson are on hand to give advice to caller Todd, who is just beginning his journey from community college to medical school. Is the advice we give any good? Well, we tried, and that’s all that counts. Also, we discuss researchers’ discovery that it’s possible to cause hallucinations just by staring into someone else’s eyes for 10 minutes. Try it! Don’t be weird, get permission first; maybe even start by introducing yourself.
Continue reading Advice for the Young At Heart

Rising From the Ashes

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Failure is a difficult topic for medical students.  It’s not something they’re used to, after earning undergrad degrees near the tops of their classes, and generally being the smartest people they know.  But science is all about failure.  Scientific experiments, part of the foundation upon which evidence-based medicine rests, fail again and again before they make the discoveries that change our understanding of the world in which we live.

Doctors must make their peace with failure.  Even the best cannot always help those counting on them.  This time on the Short Coat, we got a group of students together to discuss their experiences with failure and what they learned from it. 

Given the sensitive nature of the discussion, everyone was given the opportunity to remain anonymous, and they were cautioned to speak only of their own experiences.  Officials of the Carver College of Medicine reviewed the recording before it was released to ensure that no student’s right to confidentiality was violated.

Listen:  Episode 013: Rising From The Ashes

The opinions expressed in this feed and podcast are not those of the University of Iowa or the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine.

Orientation Week

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As the Carver College of Medicine inducts another class of medical students, we look at the role of our Learning Communities, some things that students wish they’d known when they entered medical school, a countdown of medically themed songs, and some info about a few of our student organizations.

The opinions expressed in this feed and podcast are not those of the University of Iowa or the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine.