Tag Archives: emergency medicine

Tales from the Clinic: from Theory to Practice

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There is nothing to fear but fear itself.

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Photo by amountaineer

Kylie Miller and Issac Schwantes take a break from their fairly new clinical duties to let Gabe Conley and Erik Kneller know how it’s going working with actual patients.  What unexpected things have they learned?  Were their professors really correct when the said that arcane bit of information would actually be useful in the real world?  Were their fears (whatever they were) realized?  Would they rather grandma puke every time they broke wind, or have a shingles outbreak whenever they get a passing grade or better in medical school?  Dave assures them: these are the questions listeners want answers to.

This Week in Medical News

The nation’s largest health insurer, Aetna, wants patients to diagnose themselves and risk huge ER bills if they get it wrong.  We recap the work of our own Sarah Ziegenhorn and her non-profit Iowa Harm Reduction Coalition, which is on the forefront of needle exchange efforts in Iowa.  The DEA is relaxing rules that prevented many healthcare workers from prescribing treatment to opioid addiction sufferers.  And we look at the tiny, cute robots that may one day crawl, tumble, and wiggle around your insides like an over-active inchworm.

We Want to Hear From You

What are your fears for starting the next phase of your education?  Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

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Reaffirming points of pride, and life in rural Iowa

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We’re Iowa proud

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Photo by cwwycoff1

Dave has been noticing a certain mid-semester droopiness among some students at the College of Medicine.  Perhaps, he conjectured, we all need a bit of a pick-me-up.   So, Levi Endelman, Issac Schwantes, and new co-host Derek Bradley share things about themselves of which they are proud.  Issac isn’t much impressed by Dave’s point of pride.  And the boys reminisce about their rural Iowa upbringings, from careening over the ubiquitous gravel roads to romancing atop grain elevators.

This Week in Medical News

Vox has begun collecting data from ER visitors on the resulting bills, so the American Hospital Association issues a warning to its members.  And the US opioid epidemic is finally a national emergency, officially.  Will the president’s latest proclamation have any effect?  Will the American taxpayer get its $57,000 worth?

We Want to Hear From You

What do you do when you’re academically down in the dumps?  Do you take your cell phone to the bathroom?  Admit it! Show the world you aren’t afraid of its judgement by calling us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

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Human Trafficking and What Physicians Need to Know, with Dr. Shannon Findlay

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Statistics on human trafficking vary, but Dr. Shannon Findlay, an Emergency Medicine resident at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, offers some sobering information. It is believed that 21 million people worldwide are affected by human trafficking, and perhaps 18,000 people are trafficked into the United States every year in forced labor or sex work. It’s not just people being brought into the country against their will, either, or even moved across state lines.  Even people within their home towns can be victims. Recognizing that someone is a victim of human trafficking is difficult, as there are so many variables and misunderstandings to overcome.  Physicians may be running across victims and not realizing it, even if something doesn’t seem right about a patient interaction.  Corbin Weaver, Tarek Karam, and Kylie Miller join Dr. Shannon to discuss the problem, how physicians can recognize potential victims, and what they can do about it.  And with Match Day around the corner, Dr. Findlay also recalls her match experience as well as offers advice to new residents in their intern year.  Listeners, share your thoughts with us each week.  Call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, and see our Facebook page where we record Live to include your questions and comments in the show.

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Superstition is the Human Condition

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Photo by bionicteaching

Halloweeeeeeennnn! It’s upon us, and while we’re women and men of science around here, we’re not completely able to shed our lizard-brain’s need to take shortcuts.  Which is why we are not at all surprised to know that ER docs still think the moon’s revolutions around the big blue marble are in any way important.  Fortunately, the post-cave-dwellers at the Marburg Center for Undiagnosed and Rare Disease are putting IBM’s Watson to good use by diagnosing–in seconds– rare diseases that defy the efforts of meatier doctors.  And a Rutgers study finds that med school faculty severely underestimate students’ stress and mental health issues.

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The Examined Life Conference

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elcOur show this time was record in front of a remarkably appreciative audience at The Examined Life Conference, and it was a lot of fun.  We talked with several presenters from the conference, including Gabriel Ledger an emergency physician who became a filmmaker when he decided he wanted to find out more about the patients he’d encountered in the ER.  We spoke with Emily White, an Iowa undergrad who has been doing research on Dignity Therapy and who no doubt has a bright future in medicine.  Toni Becker is a speech language pathology grad student whose portraiture and interviews of people with disabilities remind us of their significance.  Susan Ball is associate director of the New York Presbyterian’s AIDS care center, and shared with us her experiences as a physician at the start of the AIDS epidemic.
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