Tag Archives: Rob Humble

In 2019, Medicine Is Political.

Share
angry politician photo
Photo by torbakhopper

[Once again, our charitable mission is supported in this episode by CommonBond.  Thank you, CommonBond!!!]

Former listener Cash commented on Facebook that he doesn’t listen any more because of our political comments.  So on today’s show, Aline Sandouk, Rob Humble, Irisa Mahaparn, and Admissions Counselor Kate McKenzie help Dave process Cash’s feedback.  Should medical students, physicians, and scientists express themselves on political issues or should they remain publicly neutral? Moreover, with medicine and science having become among the hottest topics in politics, is there an actual obligation to take a stand?


Buy Our Merch and Give At The Same Time

You care about others, or you wouldn’t be into this medicine thing. Our #merchforgood program lets you to give to our charity of the semester and get something for yourself at the same time!

This Week in Medical News

A recent study of volunteers who had their genes sequenced, proteins mapped, biome surveyed, and blood analyzed intensively found that the dream of “personalized” medicine may just be within reach…but at what cost?  Coca Cola is accused of including undisclosed kill clauses in its nutrition research agreements in case don’t like the results.  And another study confirms that which women of color have three times the risk of dying during pregnancy and after compared to white women!

We Want to Hear From You

How can we help you on your med school journey? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

Continue reading In 2019, Medicine Is Political.

Brown Girl, White Coat, ft. Saie Joshi

Share
Saie Joshi via Instagram

Saie Joshi is a first-year med student at Baylor, but that’s not all she is.  She’s got a beautiful singing voice and a busy schedule advising med school hopefuls from her tight-knit Indian-American community.  And, of course, as she’s an up-and-coming podcaster we were excited to have her on as a guest co-host.  Aline Sandouk, Issac Schwantes, and Rob Humble spoke with Saie about her show Brown Girl White Coat, and about  ZDoggMD’s recent reflection on moral injury among physicians and healthcare providers.

Fittingly, we had a question from listener Jesse about his path forward after a bad first semester lead to a low graduating GPA.  Luckily Saie was on hand to help.


Buy Our Merch and Give At The Same Time

You care about others, or you wouldn’t be into this medicine thing. Our #merchforgood program lets you to give to our charity of the semester and get something for yourself at the same time!

This Week in Medical News

Scientists at Yale have found a way to partially re-start the brains of pigs hours after they were slaughtered, causing ethicists to clutch their inhalers.  The Feds rounded up more than 60 people including doctors and pharmacists in Appalachia charging them with opioid offences and fraud.  And a cure for bubble boy syndrome using HIV has changed the lives of 10 infants barring unknown future side effects.

We Want to Hear From You

Do you have a project you want to tell us about? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  We’ll help you spread the word.

Continue reading Brown Girl, White Coat, ft. Saie Joshi

LGBT in Med School

Share

What’s it like being a ‘sexual minority’ in medical school?

lgbt photoShort Coats Rob Humble and Claire Castaneda are joined by new co-hosts Mitchell Hooyer and Jeremy Sanchez to talk about their personal experiences as members of the LGBT community while studying medicine.  They highlight Iowa’s surprisingly inclusive nature–among other things, Iowa was only the third state to legalize same-sex marriage.  And they discuss the interesting origin of CCOM’s student group EqualMeds, as well as how LGBT topics are covered in med school curricula. We also answer the question: why is it even necessary to include specific discussion of these groups given that all people are the same on a cellular level?

Plus, we answer a listener question from Nikki:  is it easy to make friends in medical school if you’re an introvert?

We Want to Hear From You

What have you experienced as an LGBT student or seen as an LGBT ally? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

Continue reading LGBT in Med School

Recess Rehash: Poor: a deadly diagnosis in America, ft. Sarah Smarsh

Share

A look at the people valued more as functioning machines than as people

Sarah Smarsh

[We had an interview show lined up for this week’s show, but sucky winter weather intervened to ruin our guest’s travel plans.  C’est la vie!  We’ll be back next week with a new show, so stay frosty.]

This past week, the Carver College of Medicine hosted its 12th annual Examined Life Conference.  Our featured presenter, journalist and memoirist Sarah Smarsh, grew up in a family of farmers and teen mothers in Kansas.  Her family, laborers trapped in a cycle of poverty, made the kinds of choices that poor people must make in rural America–whether to eat or seek medical attention, for instance.  Decades of inattention–and scorn–from politicians and the media have widened this class divide, and have sent the inexorable message that their voices don’t matter.  Ms. Smarsh’s recent book, Heartland: A Memoir of working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, tells the tales of her family’s struggles with poverty, addiction, workplace injuries, and family violence that many economic and political elites don’t have the background or will to truly understand.

Though Ms. Smarsh has managed to escape the cycle, she has retained her citizenship in–and love for–that largely unexplored country, and offers a deep look at what it’s like to be poor in the wealthiest and most powerful society on the planet. Our executive producer Jason T. Lewis, Rob Humble, Gabe Conley, Teneme Konne, and Christopher Portero Paff talk with Ms. Smarsh about what the working poor are facing, how our willful lack of understanding shapes our perceptions of their struggles, and why it’s crucial that medicine encourages and welcomes them as providers.

We Want to Hear From You

Your voice does matter.  So call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Recess Rehash: Poor: a deadly diagnosis in America, ft. Sarah Smarsh

Poor: a deadly diagnosis in America, ft. Sarah Smarsh

Share

A look at the people valued more as functioning machines than as people

Sarah Smarsh

This past week, the Carver College of Medicine hosted its 12th annual Examined Life Conference.  Our featured presenter, journalist and memoirist Sarah Smarsh, grew up in a family of farmers and teen mothers in Kansas.  Her family, laborers trapped in a cycle of poverty, made the kinds of choices that poor people must make in rural America–whether to eat or seek medical attention, for instance.  Decades of inattention–and scorn–from politicians and the media have widened this class divide, and have sent the inexorable message that their voices don’t matter.  Ms. Smarsh’s recent book, Heartland: A Memoir of working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, tells the tales of her family’s struggles with poverty, addiction, workplace injuries, and family violence that many economic and political elites don’t have the background or will to truly understand.

Though Ms. Smarsh has managed to escape the cycle, she has retained her citizenship in–and love for–that largely unexplored country, and offers a deep look at what it’s like to be poor in the wealthiest and most powerful society on the planet. Our executive producer Jason T. Lewis, Rob Humble, Gabe Conley, Teneme Konne, and Christopher Portero Paff talk with Ms. Smarsh about what the working poor are facing, how our willful lack of understanding shapes our perceptions of their struggles, and why it’s crucial that medicine encourages and welcomes them as providers.

We Want to Hear From You

Your voice does matter.  So call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Poor: a deadly diagnosis in America, ft. Sarah Smarsh

Reactions, Reagents, and Repose

Share

How much is lab medicine a part of medical school?

laboratory test tubes photoRemembering a recent episode in which we spoke briefly of colored test tubes, Adee writes in with a question for Hilary O’Brien, Erik Kneller, Mackenzie Walhof, and Rob Humble–what, if anything, do medical students learn about laboratory science? And we got a lot of feedback on our recent discussion of unwanted sexual attention from patients, all of it pretty good!  Which is nice…thank you, listeners!

We also see if the co-hosts have the skillz needed to translate patients’ chief complaints into…well, something that resembles a chief complaint.

This Week in Medical News

Oh, patients.  You lying liars.  But  one company in nearby Coralville thinks they have cracked the code, and will offer a test that they promise will determine not just whether you’re lying about alcohol and tobacco use, but how much you’re lying.  And an Australian euthanasia advocate wants to give people the option to go beyond the veil (if that’s their wish) in a futuristic pod.

We Want to Hear From You

We give free (useful?) advice! Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

Continue reading Reactions, Reagents, and Repose

Taking Advice is Hard To Do

Share

Giving advice is easy.  Taking it?  Not so much.

selfie photo
Photo by Maurits Verbiest

Listener Arman calls back to thank us for some good advice we gave him on continuing his hobbies and interests outside medical school!  Nevertheless, he notes how difficult it often is to take advice, even when we want it, and wonders if we know why?  Of course we do, and Levi Endelman, Tony Rosenberg, Mark Moubarek, and Rob Humble are willing to advise him.  And Samuel paints doctors with a broad brush when he writes to tell us his worries about the kinds of people who go to medical school and the sorts of things they do when they get those precious letters after their names and the prestige to go with them.

This Week in Medical News

The WHO and others are ready to add ‘gaming disorder‘ to the International Classification of Diseases, to the dismay of many experts (and little ol’ us).  And researchers in India are taking a 2014 internet hoax to its logical conclusion and trying to decide if ‘selfitis‘ (the obsessive taking of selfies) is a real concern, as well as how people use them to prop themselves up.

We Want to Hear From You

Wanna show us your best duck-lips selfie?  Need some advice that you won’t take? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  Do all three!

Continue reading Taking Advice is Hard To Do

Coming From a Medical Family

Share
happy bird photo
Certainly not! Hurrumph. Photo by DrPhotoMoto

On Inauguration Day, listener Tekia (and we hope that’s spelled right) called to let us know that we were helping her stay frosty.  Another listener, Liza, wrote wondering if her peers with MD family members are at an advantage in medical school.  Co-hosts John Pienta and Adam Erwood (who have physicians in their immediate families) and Kylie Miller and Rob Humble (who don’t) are happy to discuss the blessings supposedly showered upon those for whom medicine is a family business, and how those who aren’t so fortunate can soldier on without those advantages.  Also, the spirit of intellectual curiosity is alive!  Thanks to that–and a twitter hashtag–we learned this week that birds don’t break wind.  Listeners, share your thoughts with us each week.  Call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, and see our Facebook page for a question to consider every week.

Continue reading Coming From a Medical Family

Putting 2016 behind us…waaaay behind us.

Share
smell photo
Photo by break.things

Dave and the gang (Kaci McCleary, Rob Humble, Elizabeth Shirazi, and later in the show Anthony Hunt (an Iowa pharmacy student to whom Rob is affianced) say goodbye to what many acknowledge was a suppurating, prurient rash of a year.  Fortunately, medical students around the country are working to make medical school a better place, including some Michigan students who have formed a consult service for those who need help not being terrible oral presenters. The gang discuss their favorite lecturers, including Dr. Nathan Swailes who’s got a pretty fun blog about histology, of all things. NASA technology is doing its part, taking Mars Lander technology and using it to detect bed sores, which is a far bigger deal than you might expect.  Another group of researchers has created a cool bit of nanotech that can effectively diagnose 17 different disorders just by ‘smelling’ your breath.  Can today’s co-hosts smell any better than a bunch of high tech nano-whatsis?  We do an experiment to find out.

Listeners, share your thoughts and ideas with us each week: call us at 347-SHORTCT any time, send us emails at theshortcoats@gmail.com, and follow us on Facebook.

Continue reading Putting 2016 behind us…waaaay behind us.

Considering The Other Sides

Share
anger photo
Photo by madstreetz

With the close of the election of 2016, many people, including us, found themselves dismayed and surprised by a great many things.  But why were we so shocked?  Now that our hindsight has been LASIK’d, some are noticing the truth that was hiding in plain sight: people were feeling ignored.  And those people were the ones that the electoral college protects: rural Americans. In this episode, we (that is, Dave, Mark Moubarek, John Pienta, Rob Humble, and Amy Hanson) try to step out of our bubble. We cast our eyes on our own ignorance and speculate a little on what our fellow Americans want.  We try to avoid politics in this episode in favor of thoughtful, empathetic consideration.  Let us know whether or not we were successful.

Continue reading Considering The Other Sides