Our 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. Continue reading The Examined Life Conference→
Medical School is hard work. Between the information to memorize and the concepts to understand, along with the time you’ll spend on it all, it seems ripe for technological intervention. Can an app really help you memorize anatomy? Can a website really help you make medical decisions? Can a table really help you get organized? We recently surveyed students here at the UI Carver College of Medicine and on Reddit, asking them for recommendations and tips on using tech during medical school. Listen in as Cole Cheney, Aline Sandouk, John Pienta, Lisa Wehr, and Greg Woods wade through the results. Continue reading Technology to Make Med School Easier→
Lisa Wehr, John Pienta, and Kaci McCleary, along with producer Jason Lewis, get to interview New York Times Bestselling author Sam Kean. Mr. Kean has written several meticulously researched books that tell the stories of science and scientific advances. His most recent book, The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery.
Merry Christmas, if that’s your thing. This week, Aline Sandouk, Lisa Wehr, Greg Woods, and Kaci McCleary ponder the prevalence of psychological issues among doctors. It turns out, they’re messed up, especially surgeons. Keep away from those guys, unless you need a transplant. Continue reading Doctor Psychopath Will See You Now→
The U.S. has recently (and not-so-recently) been rocked by the killings of black men by police; these events have spawned protests, among them the die-ins at medical schools around the country. Students Ben Quarshie, Kaci McCleary, Lisa Wehr, Greg Woods, and Aline Sandouk discuss these events, how non-minorities can take part in the conversation without screwing it up, and why these events are important to medical students. Continue reading Privilege, Racism, and Allies→
Happy Thanksgiving! Have a heaping slice of Greg Woods, Lisa Wehr, Cole Cheney, and Corbin Weaver who cover the attention Mattel’s Barbie is getting for being a shockingly bad computer engineer, and whether and how this sort of bias against the competence of women appears in medical education. Continue reading Barbie is a Terrible Computer Engineer→
Oh, this? It’s my internal pet. Photo by The British LibraryCorbin Weaver, Kaci McCleary, Lisa Wehr, Greg Woods, Ben Quarshie and Cole Cheney were all available for podcasting this week, so I match them with their celebrity look-alikes. Also, we announce an internship for Iowa pre-meds, something we’re very excited about. We talk about Brittany Maynard’s decision to move to Oregon so that she could be in a position to end her suffering from glioblastoma by taking advantage of Oregon’s Death with Dignity law. Continue reading Celebrity Look-Alikes→
Oh, cheer up, Melinda. Your cancer is cured! Photo by bradleygee
This week on The Short Coat Podcast, Lisa Wehr, Cole Cheney, Zhi Xiong, and Greg Woods are back with this week’s completely inadvertent theme: odoriferous treatments. Also we talk about how medical students do a lot of staring at the bark and missing the trees, and the scandalous and sexist mnemonics used in medical school for all that bark staring. Dave looks forward to the delivery of his iPad Air 2 and ditching his 2010 iPad 2 because iOS 8 destroyed it. U2’s Bono reveals that his silly glasses are a treatment for his glaucoma, making everyone feel bad for thinking he was just trying and failing to look cool. There is a evolutionary reason for the thick male skull, which seems to coincide with the appearance of The Three Stooges on the fossil record. Cole reveals he’s a beta male as evidenced by his reaction to blood draws, and how this reaction perpetuates the survival of the species. A British man fakes a 2-year coma to avoid court. Proposals for a robot force to deal with Ebola. The University of Exeter isolates a compound from the smell of flatulence that they think will treat diseases that are mediated by damage to mitochondria. Researchers peg when adult humans gained lactase and thus the ability to process milk, and as a result we are thankful that Lisa grew up on a dairy farm and explains why and how adults grew to do that. Scientists discover that our skin contains odor receptors, and a man with a spinal injury gets cells from his olfactory bulb transplanted into his spine and regains motion and sensation.
Big Boobs Matter Most (I swear, that’s the title of the article, don’t fire me)
It’s our 50th episode, and students Lisa Wehr, Matt Maves, Greg Woods, Cole Cheney, and Deep Bhat are on hand, and admissions recruiter Amy A’hearn stops by to address a listener’s Moment of Truth: are overseas medical mission trips still a good idea when you’re looking to add a little something to your CV as you prepare to apply to med school? She says, sure, but there are some gotchas you need to know about. Also, Facebook and Apple cover the costs for female employees to freeze their eggs. The first baby born from a transplanted uterus is doing fine. Withdrawal symptoms due to a Google Glass addiction are mistaken for alcohol withdrawal. Breast cancer awareness campaigns—are they trivializing with humor a serious disease? A woman’s “cheese slid off her cracker,” resulting in a fugue state that lasts 2400 miles, but shows that people are still looking out for each other. A berry’s juice, applied to some cancers, make them disappear, but (because Mother Nature hates us) it’s a pretty rare berry. Long Islanders’ are becoming allergic to red meat due to tick bites. We succumb to the Ebola coverage epidemic raging through America.
Matt gets in touch with a question: does a mediocre academic history automatically destroy med school aspirations, or are there ways to fix that? There are, and Amy A’hearn of our admissions office gives Matt a path to follow. Lisa Wehr and Matt Maves discuss apps that seek to help poor people, a UK chef creating ‘human meat burgers’ to promote a popular television show (with recipe, so be sure to save this one for your next Walking Dead premiere party), and a special shout out to the first genetically modified babies, who are graduating high school in the coming year. Please use your superpowers responsibly.
Our 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.
