Tag Archives: Amanda Litka

Against the Odds: First-Generation in Medicine

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It’s hard to become a doctor when you’ve never met one.

It’s sometimes easy to forget from the ivory tower that relatively few American’s have, or take, the opportunity to advance beyond high school. This, of course, means that their children are also less likely to do so. Those kids that do decide to make that leap are at a distinct disadvantage to their peers whose parents did go to college. And those who advance further to attend medical school are even more rare, and are still disadvantaged compared to their peers. We call those students “first-generation in medicine,” and they’re an important group. They represent an opportunity to have a medical workforce that can serve their patients better because they understand a wider range of patient experiences and determinants of health at a gut level.

PA1 Julie Vuong, M1 Amanda Litka, MD/PhD student Faith Prochaska are all first-generation students in college or medicine, and M1 Holly Hemann is engaged in outreach activities focused on first-generation students. They sat down to talk with Dave about their battles to overcome the barriers to enter a medical career, what it means for their future practice of medicine, and how learning about medicine is often a gut-wrenching experience that highlights the struggles their families back home have in maintaining their own health.

Meanwhile, some medical schools have gone tuition free, which should have been good news…but so far it has actually *decreased* the number of low-income students that matriculate at those schools, as well as lowering the number of students from those schools who enter primary care.

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Med School is SIMPLE?! (Recess Rehash)

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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.”

[Dave’s co-hosts were all doing medical student things on our usual recording day, so enjoy this previously released episode!]

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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Continue reading Med School is SIMPLE?! (Recess Rehash)

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.

We want to know more about you: Take the Listener Survey

We do more things on…

Continue reading Med School is SIMPLE?!