Tag Archives: Nick Lind

Recess Rehash: Med Schools Hate When Students Have Jobs. Some People Take the Risk Anyway.

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Perhaps no school would recommend working during med school, but plenty of people do it.  

[We’re on a break! But we’ll be back with a new episode on August 11, 2022. Enjoy this re-run!]

TL;DR

  • Sometimes, you just don’t want to take that extra loan money.  One option: a part time job.
  • But that is risky–the time you devote to that job could have been spent on studying, and perhaps could decrease your chances at those competitive residency programs.
  • But there are medical students who make the choice to work, and some jobs might even help your chances.
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Eliza wrote to us at theshortcoats@gmail.com because, as an older, married medical student with a young child in an expensive city, she wondered what our thoughts were on students who work during medical school.  We invited her on the show so M3 Nathen Spitz, M4s Abby Fyfe and Nick Lind, and M1 Grant Stalker could find out more about her choice to work as a therapeutic yoga teacher, and discuss some of the equity issues surrounding work during medical school.  And Nathen offers some ideas about paying jobs that can actually be a benefit to medical students in their academic lives.

We also discuss the Biden administration’s new mental health-focused initiatives, especially those focused on healthcare workers, as outlined in the president’s state of the union address. 

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

Continue reading Recess Rehash: Med Schools Hate When Students Have Jobs. Some People Take the Risk Anyway.

Lessons from the Wards: what Future Residents Need to Know (Ft. Dr. Abbey hardy-Fairbanks)

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TL;DR

  • Abbey Hardy-Fairbanks is an OB/Gyn who often works with expectant moms who use drugs.
  • Future resident MDs: this episode features some of the many things she’s learned about meeting patients where they are, practicing medicine without judgement, and understanding what she and her clients can and cannot accomplish in the moment.
  • Approaching patients with an open heart from the first moment, even when their lives are outside society’s mainstream or approval, can mean the difference between losing them for good and them coming back to see anyone for more help.

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How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!
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Continue reading Lessons from the Wards: what Future Residents Need to Know (Ft. Dr. Abbey hardy-Fairbanks)

Med Schools Hate When Students Have Jobs. Some People Take the Risk Anyway.

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Perhaps no school would recommend working during med school, but plenty of people do it.  

TL;DR

  • Sometimes, you just don’t want to take that extra loan money.  One option: a part time job.
  • But that is risky–the time you devote to that job could have been spent on studying, and perhaps could decrease your chances at those competitive residency programs.
  • But there are medical students who make the choice to work, and some jobs might even help your chances.
reject photo

Eliza wrote to us at theshortcoats@gmail.com because, as an older, married medical student with a young child in an expensive city, she wondered what our thoughts were on students who work during medical school.  We invited her on the show so M3 Nathen Spitz, M4s Abby Fyfe and Nick Lind, and M1 Grant Stalker could find out more about her choice to work as a therapeutic yoga teacher, and discuss some of the equity issues surrounding work during medical school.  And Nathen offers some ideas about paying jobs that can actually be a benefit to medical students in their academic lives.

We also discuss the Biden administration’s new mental health-focused initiatives, especially those focused on healthcare workers, as outlined in the president’s state of the union address. 

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

Continue reading Med Schools Hate When Students Have Jobs. Some People Take the Risk Anyway.

Sociaizing and Studying: How do Med Students Do It?

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Med students are usually intentional about everything, even the balance between social and school

TL;DR

  • The M4s are picking their favorite residency programs in the hopes that they love the next phase of their training. We discuss the factors they’re weighing now that interviews are done.
  • A listener about to start med school wants to know how students study, and how they also have social lives when studying is so intense.
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Listener Sunrise Warghost called the Short Coat Listener Line (347-SHORTCT) because she’ll start school in the fall, and is wondering about the study techniques and mental habits medical students use to crush it in medical school. M4s Emma Bar, NIck Lind, and Madeline Cusimano, and M3 Nathen Spitz help with the tips and tricks they’ve discovered. And they also offer their methods for maintaining a social life as well, both within and outside the cloistered world of medical school.

But first, a discussion from the M4s on the factors they’re weighing as they nail down which residency programs they would like to train at next year, because like everything else in their lives, intentionality is key.

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

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Low MCAT Ruins Listener’s Med School Plans. Or Does It?

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Med schools denied this listener’s application, so he worries his low-and-not-improving MCAT will mean he’ll have to settle for a non-research career

TL;DR

  • “Cuddles” worries that he can’t be a research MD if he doesn’t get into an allopathic med school due to his low MCAT. But is that really the problem?
  • Can osteopaths be academic (research) physicians?
  • Dave gives his co-hosts a pop quiz on old time remedies after learning chimps may be practicing folk medicine.
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Listener “Cuddles” seems to be panicking after he didn’t get in to any of the medical schools he applied to. He’s worried that if he can’t get in to an MD school attached to an academic health center he won’t be able to fulfill his dream of doing medical research. He fears he might have to “settle” for a DO school to get in anywhere with his low MCAT score. M1s Matt Engelken, Noah Wick, Mallory Kallish, and M4 Nick Lind try to talk Cuddles down from his panicky state.

Dave also wants to take these fancy physicians down a peg after reading in the New York Times that chimps have been found practicing folk medicine. Who’s to say that they won’t develop vaccines and MRI machines in the future, and topple doctors from their lofty place atop the medical heap? So Dave makes them take a pop quiz on folk medicine.

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

Continue reading Low MCAT Ruins Listener’s Med School Plans. Or Does It?

Nothing is Out of Your League

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Stop gatekeeping yourself

TL;DR

  • A question Dave found on reddit inspired this week’s topic: is there any program or school that is “out of your league?”
  • Co-hosts recap their recent residency interview experiences.
  • We practice answering absurd residency interview questions.
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Today’s episode is sponsored by Panacea Financial, a division of Primis, Member FDIC. Check out their PRN Personal Loans to help cover board exams or application costs, with decisions in as little as 24 hours and great interest rates!

As usual, Dave was casting about for something to talk about on the show when he stumbled across a question by reddit user roboticnephrotomy who is worried about an ideal residency program being “out of his league.” M4s Nick Lind and Emma Barr, M1 Zach Shepard, and MD/PhD student Riley Behan explain why this is nonsense.

Nick and Emma discuss their first residency interviews, and Dave forces the whole crew to consider some of the more…well, ridiculous interview questions they might run across now or later in life.

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

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Parenting in Med School, Part 3: What About the Partners?

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Because med school is all-consuming, partners often take on much of the parenting tasks

TL;DR

  • Asking for and getting help from one’s med-student partner when parenting gets overwhelming is essential.
  • Organizing with other med student parents for mutual support is crucial.
  • The fear that med school is completely inflexible for parents may be unfounded.

M4 Nick Lind and Miriam Lind are joined by M4 Michael Lung and Christina Lung to talk about the arrangements they’ve had to make and the techniques they’ve used in order to make med school parenting work. Also unintentionally, but predictably, on the mic–Nick and Miriam’s newborn Ingrid and Michael and Tina’s 11-month old Michaela. Warning–cute baby coos and mic-grabbing noises are a feature of this episode, not a flaw! Check out our YouTube channel for the video to see cute babies.

One of the things that’s come out of Nick’s efforts putting together this series for The Short Coat is that the families have started talking more. In fact, they’ve begun organizing a parents’ group to open lines of communication and support for each other. Podcasting FTW!

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

Continue reading Parenting in Med School, Part 3: What About the Partners?

HAVING BABIES IN MED SCHOOL, PT. 2: HOW DO SCHOOLS SUPPORT PARENTS?

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Is it enough to deal with issues on a case-by-case basis, or do schools need to do better?

TL;DR

  • We share more stories from our med student parents.
  • What the research says about how medical schools are supporting parents and pregnant students in medical school.
  • How should med schools support student parents and pregnant students–can schools do better?

Physician training comes smack in the middle of prime parenting years. Yet the intensity and time commitment required to study medicine doesn’t make the decision to have kids while in school or residency–or to go into medicine when you already have kids-seem viable.

Of course, parents do it all the time, so CCOM Dad and M3 Nick Lind is back to host another in his series on medical school parenting with some other mommies and daddies. M1 Katie Higham-Kessler, M2s Jessica De Haan andSally Heaberlin, and M3 Zach Tully discuss what schools are doing to support their students who are considering or having children, and what they can do better.

Jessica also clues us in on the body of research into this important issue. There seems to be a lack of robust research on parenting in medical school, with most such studies focusing on residency–a very different situation. Perhaps the concept of the “traditional” medical student (who is age 22 to 26) has obscured the needs of the non-traditional student who is older and wants to start or has a family.

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

Continue reading HAVING BABIES IN MED SCHOOL, PT. 2: HOW DO SCHOOLS SUPPORT PARENTS?

HAVING BABIES IN MEDICAL SCHOOL

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Raising babies in med school is possible, with careful thought and lots of help

TL;DR

  • The choice to become pregnant in medical school is always a difficult one to make, considering the time constraints and the physical toll it can take.
  • Raising a kids in medical school is perhaps even harder, as even if things go well in the pregnancy, now you’ve got little humans to learn about, protect, and enjoy (and miss out on, sometimes).
  • In Part One of this three-parter, we’ll lay it all bare for you–what’s it really like to raise a family while learning to be a doctor.
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It’s a good thing they’re cute, cause they’re going to screw up your carefully constructed life.

Rising M4 Nick Lind is taking over for Dave this week for this special episode devoted to parenting in medical school. Nick is taking an elective dealing with that very subject, and he’s invited classmates Mackenzie Walhof and Chris Schanbacher as well as CCOM grad Dr. Michael Haugsdal to talk with him about the challenges students and residents face when they decide to grow their families despite already being engaged in one of the most difficult and time-consuming things a person can do.

This is part 1 of a multipart series that Nick is putting together for his elective project, and we’ll have more discussions on this topic in the weeks to come. In Part 2, The Short Coats will dsicuss how medical schools can and are supporting student parents; and in Part 3, we’ll hear from the spouses of medical students.

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

Continue reading HAVING BABIES IN MEDICAL SCHOOL

Hitting the Wall, Then Scaling the Heights

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The M1 Wall is Real. You’ll Probably Have to Climb It.

TL;DR

  • Taking the med ed bull by the horns in a purposeful way will get your through one of the toughest moments.
  • Given any definition of “success,” a medical student who succeeds in medical school engages “like they paid for it.”
  • The definition of “success” doesn’t necessarily include honors grades or high scores. If you choose what it means, you will succeed!

Today’s show is sponsored by Panacea Financial, the digital bank created for doctors, by doctors.

You can choose your metric for success!

After hearing of a student’s struggles with the M1 wall–that point students get to when they’re exhausted, questioning their choices, and worrying how they’re going to get through this–got Dave thinking about the various ways medical school challenges the psyche. Whether it’s suddenly bumping up against ones’ limits, realizing some disturbing aspects of the hidden curriculum, or grappling with doubt, medical school is a real beast.

It’s not uncommon to feel alone when you hit the wall. Everyone around you looks cool…but are they really? When you decide to open up about your struggles, what if no one reciprocates? And in a world where not everyone is above the very-high mean, what does it mean to be below average? MD/PhD students Aline Sandouk and Miranda Schene, M3 Nick Lind, and M1 Eric Boeshart have all run into the wall, and are on today’s show to tell the tale.

We Want to Hear From You

How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!


What an AI thinks we said

Continue reading Hitting the Wall, Then Scaling the Heights