Isa Perez-Sandi producer Archives

Five M3s explain what actually happens when preclinical learning meets real patients.

Dave sits down with a crew of M3s and one asterisked MSTP M4 — Riley Behan-Bush, Samantha Gardner, Srishti Mathur, Sahana Sarin, and Sarah Upton — to talk about the actual experience of clerkships: what the jump from three semesters of preclinical book-learning into surgery, psychiatry, emergency medicine, and family medicine really feels like, why the first two weeks can swing from “best of med school” to “worst of med school” depending entirely on the rotation you land, and how you’re supposed to figure out your place on a team that changes every two weeks. They dig into the actual mechanics of honoring a clerkship — shelf exam cutoffs that can sit at 90%+, evaluations that make up 70-80% of a grade, and the particular indignity of missing honors by a single point after doing everything right.

The group works through how to handle conflicting instructions from residents and attendings, how to ask questions without challenging the hierarchy (“for my own understanding, can you explain why you decided…”), and how to actually figure out a specialty when you love everything, including surgery where you’ll stand for hours. Sahana’s pros-and-cons journal after every rotation gets a real endorsement. Also, they answer a batch of questions submitted by their own preclinical classmates: how much free time you actually get (some), whether Des Moines versus Iowa City rotations matter (it depends what you want out of medicine), and what actually makes clerkship life easier — which turns out to be a year’s supply of Costco garbage bags, a cellular hotspot, and, for at least one host, a husband who meal preps.

Episode credits:

Producer: Isa Perez-Sandi

Co-hosts: Srishti Mathur, Sarah Upton, Samantha Gardner, Riley Behan Bush, Sahana Sarin

Production: SCP Media Lab–Anna Royer, Cyrus Barati, Isa Perez-Sandi, Zach Grissom, Sarah Upton, Srishti Mathur, David Lee, and Jacob Thompson

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Physician scientists live at the intersection of clinic and lab

There are so many kinds of physicians. This time, we take a closer look at one type that, from the outside, might seem incredibly difficult to achieve–the MD/PhD. Eight years (!) of combined medical and scientist training seems like a lot. But consider the paths of MD/PhD students Riley Behan-Bush and Hannah Van Ert. Riley found the program through a Google search about whether to pick med school or grad school, and Hannah had already started a career in nursing before a research lab changed her path completely. To them, the eight years between starting and finishing ended up being the right move, and in the end, it often didn’t feel like a long slog of schooling (even if everyone outside the program still calls it school). Now in their final stretch, Hannah and Riley sit with Darren Hoffmann, PhD, and Martha Carvour, MD/PhD (CCOM Class of 2012) who now helps run Iowa’s Medical Scientist Training Program to shed light on this more meandering path to physician-hood.

The conversation doesn’t stay comfortable for long. The crew discusses recent federal funding cuts, the “sacrifices” MD/PhDs make for the path, NIH grant uncertainty, and the question of who gets to become a physician scientist when the money starts moving around in unpredictable ways. Darren puts it plainly: those who control the money don’t have the imagination needed to make the changes scientists envision; grant-writing done well is the bridge for that gap. Hannah speaks of her fright when cuts led some MSTP programs to worry they wouldn’t be able to accept students. She’s also thinking about what the pipeline looks like in fifteen years and whether it defaults back to “wealthier white men.” Riley’s optimistic that physician scientists, because they talk to patients every single day, are better positioned than anyone to rebuild public trust in science, a view Hannah is less convinced of. Martha thinks historically scientists have often been too concerned with their own niche interests, when they should spend more time showing up in their communities.

Episode credits:

Producer: Isa Perez-Sandi
Co-hosts: Riley Behan-Bush, Hannah Van Ert
Guest: Martha Carvour, MD/PhD; Darren Hoffmann, PhD
Production: SCP Media Lab–Anna Roger, Cyrus Barati, Isa Perez-Sandi, Zach Grissom, Sarah Upton, Srishti Mathur, David Lee, and Jacob Thompson