Tag Archives: Jason Lewis

Putting the Anxiety Cart Before the Horse

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Anxiety about your competitive specialty ambitions in your first year isn’t worth it.

anxiety photoListener Luis wrote in expressing his anxiety that his med school–which he’ll begin attending this fall–doesn’t have the prestige or programs to support his desire for a competitive specialty like ophthalmology.   If that’s the case, he wondered, what can he do to increase his chances of obtaining his dream career?  Fortunately for Luis, Irisa Mahaparn, Gabe Conley, Brendan George, Jason Lewis, and new co-host Andres Dajles were on hand to give Luis the advice and encouragement he needs…and a tiny dose of tough love, too.

Also, Dave indulges in his interest in tech startup culture by having his co-hosts pitch to him random product ideas for random people.

This Week in Medical News

Did an astronaut’s genetic code change after being in space?  Of course not.  Should med students upgrade their stupid brains with “cognitive prosthetic” implants?  Anything to pass that test!  Should Dave have his brain turned to glass when his stupid body is ready to kick it so he can be uploaded to the cloud someday?  Er…ask again later?

We Want to Hear From You

Would you get a chip in your head if it made you a better student?  Or is there a line you just won’t cross? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

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Bandwagons, Bicarb, and Broca’s Bitty Bulb

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The Baby Bed Box Bandwagon.

Finnish-style baby box photo
Cutting edge baby sleep technology Photo by myglesias

What is it about public health issues that lends itself to bandwagons? John Pienta, Levi Endelman, Hillary O’Brien, Issac Schwantes, and Jason Lewis discuss Finland’s contribution to parenting, the cardboard box in which babies sleep.  This year, hundreds of thousands of boxes will be given to new parents by US states in an attempt to improve infant mortality rates.  Is that at all helpful, or are we ignoring other causes of death among infants?

This week in science and medicine news

You know things are weird in healthcare when baking soda is in such short supply that hospitals start cutting back on open-heart surgery. And thanks to a certain 19th neuroanatomist’s ideas about the relative sizes of the frontal lobe and the olfactory bulb, we decided that humans have crappy senses of smell…a ‘fact’ that turns out was never tested and is probably not at all true!

We want to hear from you

We also heard from listener Mike, who we offended 70 episodes ago.  We’re not entirely sure what we said, exactly, that made Mike give us up after listening to roughly 80 hours of our half-baked opinions, but we always count ourselves fortunate to hear specific negative feedback (and hey, positive feedback is nice, too).  Call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, and email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Bandwagons, Bicarb, and Broca’s Bitty Bulb

Guns and Research

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assault rifle photo
Why are people shooting up the place? I guess we can never know! Photo by Martin Laco Photography

Even though Dave’s in NYC, he still finds a way to call it in (pun intended) for a show with Kaci McCleary, Corbin Weaver, John Pienta, and Jason Lewis. We discuss the possibility that most medical abstracts are at best wishful thinking and at worst fraudulent. And speaking of research, physicians get it together to petition congress to start treating gun violence as a fundable research topic for the CDC.
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Terrence Holt interview audio only

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smjHaving a little trouble with iTunes, so I’m posting this to (try to) make sure listeners get our discussion with Dr. Holt delivered to their iDevices properly. See the previously posted episode description here. I hope this works!

A Doctor’s Story with Terrence Holt

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Terrence Holt, MD
Terrence Holt, MD

On this week’s show, Dr. Terrence Holt, author of Internal Medicine: A Doctor’s Stories visits with Writing and Humanities Program Director Jason Lewis, and students Cole Cheney, Ethan Forsgren, Aline Sandouk, and a studio audience. Dr. Holt is a geriatrician at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.  His book is about residency, and is an exploration of how doctors find the compassion and strength to care about their work and patients.  The first chapter,  “A Sign of Weakness,” takes us through an inexperienced doctor’s confrontation of his own helplessness against the impending death of his patient.  You may want to read it before you listen. (Look for the link below the audio player.)

 Dr. Holt has a lot to offer med students in terms of wisdom.  How having a deep and thoughtful appreciation of your own humanity helps If you’re going to practice medicine humanely.  The role doubt plays in the life of a doc, and the fact that If you’re not having doubt multiple times in the course of a day, you’re not paying close enough attention.  The things that keep him going as a doctor and as a writer. How the connection between writer and reader gives writers advantages that other kinds of artists may not have. And using literature as a way of getting the kinds of experience that you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

Episode 048: A Doctor’s Story with Terrence Holt

Excerpt: Internal Medicine: A Doctor’s Stories, “A Sign of Weakness”

Excerpted from Internal Medicine: A Doctor’s Stories by Terrence Holt. Copyright © 2014 by Terrence Holt. With permission of the publisher, Liveright Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved

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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.