Tag Archives: game

Mouths Wide Open

Share
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-20427-9

Aline Sandouk discusses with her co-hosts the recent breakthrough in her research–which is pretty much that she’s experiencing the exact opposite of what PhD students fear, and that her research may just have a path forward.  Whew!  And while we couldn’t answer any listener questions this week–hang in there, Madeline and Tiana, you’re on the list!–we did answer anatomy questions asked with dental mouth spreaders in our mouths.  Warning: this episode contains more than the usual amount saliva-based sounds.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by David Etler (@chzdanish) on


Plus, Kylie Miller explains to Aline, Madeline Slater, and Nick Lund that she is a compulsive licker.

This Week in Medical News

A DNA study determines that stethoscopes are gross.  More doubts expressed at the validity of research in light that many top docs aren’t disclosing conflicts of interest in their publications.  And docs (plus Dave) are learning that women might actually need uteruses for more than housing and then expelling babies.

We Want to Hear From You

Are you a compulsive licker? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

Continue reading Mouths Wide Open

The Secondary Application: Bragging vs. Confidence

Share

How can you brag about yourself without bragging about yourself?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4773691/

We are taught from a  young age (most of us, anyway) not to brag.  It is better, we may sometimes hear, to show confidence.  Listener Rachel wrote in with a question about the secondary application: how does one confidently talk themselves up without coming across as a braggart?  Lucky for Rachel, we have Daniel Schnall from our admissions staff on hand to help Mark Moubarek, Kylie Miller, Aline Sandouk, and Gabe Conley with some great advice about how to sell yourself on your application and also back it up.  Don’t want to look like a chump?  Dan has your answer, Rachel.

Kylie had an excellent idea: med students are pressed for time, and nutrition can be one of those things they deep six in favor of studying.  Her thought: let’s make a cookbook for Med Student Success, and listeners can contribute!  Do you have a favorite recipe you use to keep your Kreb’s cycle in tip top shape?  Then submit the recipe so we all can benefit!  Comfort food, speedy prep, healthy living,  or whatever, we want to hear about it!  We’ll publish the results in some fashion, and everyone who contributes will get a free copy!

Plus, the group plays Doctor Forehead.  Do you know the terms and concepts Dave found in the news last week, and why they were even being talked about?

This Week in Medical News

Everyone knows ortho residents don’t get enough exercise.  Skinny, pale, weak, they’re practically collapsing under the weight of their own skin.  Which is why we’re relieved that someone took pity and created a peer reviewed(?) workout routine for them, using common materials found around the ortho workroom.  Get swole!  Is the NIH doing it’s job of funding innovative research and fostering research careers?  Doesn’t sound like it.  And the AMA goes all in on a call to ban the American Dream sale and ownership of assault weapons.

We Want to Hear From You

Are you a gun owner who feels like the AMA goes to far? Do you want advice and don’t want to pay for it?  Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  We’ll talk about it.

Continue reading The Secondary Application: Bragging vs. Confidence

Sacrifice It All to be A Med Student? Don’t Do It!

Share

Med School Requires Sacrifice…but not of everything.

drone photo
Photo by Andrew Turner

Listener Arman  is starting school this fall, and is feeling something many do at the start of this journey: that in order to succeed, he’ll have to do nothing but study.  Will he’ll have to sacrifice his outside interests to succeed? Kylie Miller, Matt Wilson, Teneme Konne and Patrick Brau admit that medical students love to talk about how hard it is and how much time they give to their new lives.  To be sure, sacrifice is a part of learning to be a doctor.  But they do have reassuring words for those who worry their identities are about to be ransacked.  Plus, Yahoo! Answers leave us with more questions than we started with…like, did the fruit fly regain consciousness?

This Week’s Medical News…

We also discuss a study from Sweden that looks at whether drones can deliver life-saving automatic emergency defibrillators to heart attack victims faster than EMS can get to them.  And we explore the power of names to get you to eat your vegetables.

We want to hear from you.

If you have fears to be assuaged, and think we are the best people to do so, give us a call! Call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, and email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Sacrifice It All to be A Med Student? Don’t Do It!

Which is More Important: the MCAT or Your Job?

Share

Should you put your life on hold for the MCAT?

censored photo
Photo by Gene Hunt

As a planned parenthood sex educator, listener T’keyah wants to know what medical schools teach about meeting the needs of LGBTQIA+ patients.  Amy Young, Patrick Brau, Liza Mann, and Teneme Konne can’t, of course speak for all medical schools, but they can speak about what they are learning: quite a lot, not least because we have an LGBTQ clinic they can rotate on!  T’keyah snuck a second question in, too: she loves her job, and it’s important work.  So, is the advice she’s gotten to stop working while studying for the MCAT valid?

This Week’s Medical News

A study out of the UK says that men of advanced paternal age (ahem, forty or older) tend to father geekier boys: smart, focused, and unconcerned about what people think of them.  And we took note of an column this week on why doctors swear so much.  Hint: it’s not all sunshine and roses, being a physician.  With this in mind it is only logical that, in the name of science, Dave has his co-hosts stick their hands in ice water and recite Dr. Seuss.  Will they be able to withstand the ethically induced pain?

We want to hear from you

Thank you, T’keyah for your question!  If you have something to say or a question to ask, call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, and email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Which is More Important: the MCAT or Your Job?

Your Gap Year Job Doesn’t Matter

Share

Listeners ask, we answer.

Photo of a subway platform gap.
Mind the Gap Year? Photo by Quaisoir @ Lil Miss QQ

A flood of listener questions this week!  It’s probably due in part to medical school application season has begun, which means medical school applicants are trying to figure out if they have what it takes…on paper.  For instance, an anonymous listener (“Meldor”) called in to find out what kinds of gap year jobs Liza Mann, Elizabeth Shirazi, Kelsey Adler, and Teneme Konne thought would allow her to keep connected to the world of medicine while she’s applying.  Of course, a gap year job like that isn’t hard to find…but is that really necessary?  We play a game to find out who can best spin any gap year job to an admissions interviewer.

Also, listener Mike returns to let us know more exactly what he was concerned about in our long-past episode in which we spoke of gun violence.  And Andrea wants to know more about what medical students learn about health disparities; given that much of human disease is about societal influences, including economic and racial divides, it turns out the answer is quite a lot.

Lastly, after hearing our recent discussion on food deserts, Erica let us  know about an organization at her alma mater, the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. Brightside Produce is devoted to generating scientific results that increase yields and reduce environmental impacts of small-scale agriculture in cities.  Basically, they’re fighting inner-city hunger using science to enable urban farmers.

We want to hear from you

Hearing from Mike, Andrea, Erica, and Meldor only whets our appetite for more listener contact.  Thank you, everyone!  If you have something to say or a question to ask, call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, and email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Your Gap Year Job Doesn’t Matter

Recess Rehash: Gap Years, Disguised Blessings, and Forbidden Words

Share
prohibit photo
Photo by Lonewolf_

Listener T’keyah sends Cole Cheney, Aline Sandouk, and John Pienta a question on gap years, which boils down to what kinds of gaps are okay according to admissions committees?  Cole reveals his post-med school podcasting plans, and he and John discuss how not getting your residency match can be a GOOD thing…after one is done crying.  And at T’Keyah’s suggestion, we try to offer sex education to each other without using words or concepts banned by state boards of education. Listeners, share your suggestions with us each week.  Call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, and email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Recess Rehash: Gap Years, Disguised Blessings, and Forbidden Words

Gap Years, Disguised Blessings, and Forbidden Words

Share
prohibit photo
Photo by Lonewolf_

Listener T’keyah sends Cole Cheney, Aline Sandouk, and John Pienta a question on gap years, which boils down to what kinds of gaps are okay according to admissions committees?  Cole reveals his post-med school podcasting plans, and he and John discuss how not getting your residency match can be a GOOD thing…after one is done crying.  And at T’Keyah’s suggestion, we try to offer sex education to each other without using words or concepts banned by state boards of education. Listeners, share your suggestions with us each week.  Call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, and email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Gap Years, Disguised Blessings, and Forbidden Words

Self-Doubt and Riding the Ethical Railroad

Share

train crash photo
Photo by SMU Central University Libraries
One of our podcasting goals is to encourage others to create their own shows, especially medical learners.  So John Pienta, Irisa Mahaparn, Adam Erwood, and Erin Pazaski were pleased to hear from listener Terel, who got it and launched a podcast of her own!  Go, Terel!  Although perhaps she and her fellow pre-meds should (not) consider the path taken by another undergrad, who decided to skip all the pesky applying and test taking and just declare herself a medical student so she could jump right in and start seeing patients.  On the other hand, if you worked hard getting your MD, and made all the sacrifices medical education requires, then getting married to your degree may be something to think about.   As often happens to medical students, Irisa confesses she’s having to learn what to think about herself when she doesn’t get tippy-top grades in her classes…and she worries that if she had to help someone give birth on a train, surely no one aboard would survive.  And Dave offers his co-hosts some practice at answering health questions they might really hear someday, which he pulled from the saddest place on the internet: Yahoo! Answers.  Listeners, share your thoughts with us each week.  Call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, and email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Self-Doubt and Riding the Ethical Railroad

General Haze-pital

Share
digital artwork by medical student irisa mahaparn
High Noon, by Irisa Mahaparn

Improvisational acting is a greater part of medical school than one might expect.  Between pretending to be doctors for one’s simulated patients,  or acting like you know what you’re doing when you’re not entirely sure, a big part of med ed is faking it until you make it.  So Dave, in his never ending quest to offer (ahem) valuable teaching moments, asks Mark Moubarek, Irisa Mahaparn, Kaci McCleary, and newcomer Johnny Henstrom to put on their masks once again for a game of General Haze-pital.  Will Johnny be cured by the dashing doctor Dr. Mark and his two eager med students, Kaci and Irisa?  Tune in to find out.  Dave is always happy to hang students’ art projects up in the building (over the objections of the architect), and Irisa’s latest work has taken its rightful place on the walls of MERF.  Also, we discuss the recent trend of trying to cure public health issues by using market forces, including the recent proposal to tax prescription opioid manufacturers a penny per milligram to fund addiction treatment and prevention.  And an Indian medical student turns to Whatsapp to deliver a baby on a train…thus fulfilling a heroic daydream we’ve all had about saving the day in dire circumstances.  Listeners, share your thoughts with us each week.  Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, or send your greetings to us at theshortcoats@gmail.comContinue reading General Haze-pital

Real, and Fake, Research Day

Share
public health photo
Photo by Arenamontanus

We’ve got a crowd of M1s in the house rapidly approaching the end of their first year.  This past week, Kylie Jade Miller, Levi Endelman, Adam Erwood, and new co-host Irene Morcuende took their physical exam skills practical exam; and they discussed some research they did at the intersections of medical and society–the public health implications of the American-as-apple-pie cycle of  incarceration, the effects of Medicare expansion have had on access to mental healthcare, what happens when substance abuse sufferers are offered clean needle and Narcan, and whether taxing sugary drinks have an effect on obesity.  Dave, seeing an opportunity to torture his co-hosts, put them through a Pop Quiz: can they discern if the research he presents to them is real or from the depths of Dave’s mind? Kylie uses the occasion to let her secret gunner out.  Listeners, we offer free advice!  Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, or email us at theshortoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Real, and Fake, Research Day