Tag Archives: mental illness

Another Student Fights Mental Illness Stigma

Share

More and more students are speaking up about their mental illness struggles

desperate photoOne of the things we Short Coats agree on is that the stigma medical students and physicians face when dealing with mental illness must end.  We are people, too, and thus are subject to the full range of human maladies.  So when listener Kate reached out to theshortcoats@gmail.com to tell us of her University of Michigan classmate Rahael Gupta’s JAMA article addressing her own struggles, Matt Wilson, Marisa Evers, and Gabe Conley could only respond with sympathy and admiration.

Turns out, however, that the Google autocomplete hive-mind isn’t terribly sympathetic to MDs, med students, pre-meds, or nurses.  That’s what we learned playing a game of Google Feud.

This Week in Medical News

Do you want to throw away your #nofilter lifestyle…completely?  Then jump on the trend and ask your plastic surgeon to make you look like your favorite Snapchat filter.  More news on the fight against influenza comes as a Japanese company has crafted a drug that eliminates the virus in just 24 hours.

We Want to Hear From You

Do you need advice?  Do you want us to talk about something near and dear to your heart? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Another Student Fights Mental Illness Stigma

Open on Applications about New-Found Sobriety?

Share

Should a Medical School Applicant Open Up About a Successful Journey to Sobriety?

sober photo
Photo by _BuBBy_

Our recent episode on mental illness in medical school generated some listener feedback.  K wrote to say thanks for the honest discussion (our pleasure!), and wondered how open she should be on her medical school application about her journey to sobriety and how it led her to find a love for community service.  Dave’s six (!) co-hosts this week–Kalyn Campbell, Kylie Miller, Levi Endelman, Irene Morcuende, Kaci McCleary, and Laura Quast–agree that it’s a tough question with two answers…the one we’d like to be able to give, and the perhaps more realistic one that acknowledges human nature.

Listener Erica called in wondering how students cope with the challenges of medical school and residency, especially in the context of a mental illness.  And Terel dropped us a line to ask the differences between a hospitalist and an internist.

This Week in Medical News

Groundbreaking research from the Journal of the National Cancer Institute shows that alternative medicine is a crappy option for cancer patients‘ survival rates…except for prostate cancer.  And a Chinese startup publishes a study in which CRISPR knocks out pig PERVs.  That’s Porcine Endogenous Retroviruses, silly, and it means if you need an organ transplant one day, you might have to thank a pig for that heart.

We want to hear from you.

Are you ready for your future pig heart?  Who would win in an alpha-gal fight, Kylie or Kalyn? We’d love to hear your thoughts.  Call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, and email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Open on Applications about New-Found Sobriety?

Dealing with Med Student Stress

Share

A 2006 review of studies on medical student psychological distress suggests that its common for medical students to experience depression and anxiety, more so than in the general population or those in the later years of medical training.  Hello, Captain Obvious.  As our new medical students finish up their first full week of medical school, student Natalie Ramirez and University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics psychiatrist Jodi Tate join us to talk about the stress that medical students face as they begin medical school, and what they can do to take the edge off.  

Listen:  The Short Couch: Dealing with Medical Student Stress

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.