Tag Archives: Sanjeeva Weerasinghe

Short Coat Podcast

Recess Rehash: Emily Silverman, MD, and The Nocturnists

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A live stage show featuring the stories of healthcare providers is now a podcast you’ll love.

EMILY SILVERMAN, MD
Dr. Silverman is an academic hospitalist at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, where she seeks out projects that resurrect the narrative soul of medicine. (Photo: http://thenocturnists.com/team/)

The day-to-day of internship, residency, and an MD career doesn’t allow much time to process the effect it’s having on the practitioner.  Rushing from one patient to the next, putting out the fires even while drinking from the firehose, and being selfless in service to the patients’ needs means that one’s own stories are buried, neglected.  More and more, however, medicine is acknowledging the need for practitioners to examine and tell their stories so that they can learn from them, teach their lessons to others, and show colleagues that they are not alone.  In 2015 Dr. Emily Silverman was in her second year of her internal medicine residency at UCSF.  She found herself with a little more time following her frenetic intern year, and with her own stories that had gone untold and unexamined.  She started to write, first in a blog she called The Nocturnists.  Then, in 2016 she organized the first live storytelling session with her colleagues.

Now, in 2018, those live sessions–held in theaters with fun music and a bar, but most importantly, distant from the hospital– are playing to sellout crowds.  Not only do the shows allow for catharsis, but for community.  And because Dr. Silverman isn’t ready to allow The University of Iowa to be a satellite venue (and believe us, we asked), we’re grateful that The Nocturnists is also a podcast!  Each episode feature a piece from the live show, followed by a relaxed, thoughtful discussion between Dr. Silverman and the storyteller.  Her email to Dave earlier this spring to tell The Short Coats about The Nocturnists was a wonderful break from the usual pitches for Caribbean med schools and Ivy League pay-to-play programs; and it gave Kylie Miller, Brendan George, Marisa Evers, and Sanjeeva Weerasinghe a great opportunity to discuss what it is The Nocturnists are thinking about.

We Want to Hear From You

If you could get up on stage and tell your story, what would you say?  Well, we have a stage!  Tell the world–call 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Recess Rehash: Emily Silverman, MD, and The Nocturnists →

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Relax or Prepare? Advice for Incoming Med Students

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Spoiler alert:  don’t “prepare” during the summer before you arrive at medical school.

summertime photo
What incoming med students should be doing before med school starts. Photo by Janitors

Listener Amanda is like many medical students–anxious and worried. In her case, she wonders if she won’t be as prepared for med school as her classmates when she starts in the fall, because they are “ahead” of her due to their experience and former careers.  We’ve got you, Amanda:  Aline Sandouk, Hillary O’brien, Erik Kneller, and Sanjeeva Weerasinghe are here to help.

Also, which of our hosts are on team Yannie or Laurel?  It doesn’t matter, because Dave did some sophisticated analysis and discovered something about the morphing audio clip that has the internet arguing again.

This Week in Medical News

The netflix series 13 Reasons Why returns for season 2 today as we record this, and Netflix has announced it’s response to mental health professionals’ concerns with the content.  Speaking of mental illness, Blue Cross Blue Shield has released a new study that says diagnoses of major depression are on the rise.  Henrietta Lacks–who was the unconsenting donor of the amazing HeLa cell line used for just about every kind of study of every kind of disease these days and whose descendents we spoke with in 2013—now has a portrait in the National Portrait Gallery.

We Want to Hear From You

Do you have a question we can help answer?  Do you need advice?  We’re giving away answers for free (along with SCP key fobs)!  Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Relax or Prepare? Advice for Incoming Med Students →

Short Coat Podcast

Emily Silverman, MD, and The Nocturnists

Audio
Share

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 50:29 — 69.4MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS | More

A live stage show featuring the stories of healthcare providers is now a podcast you’ll love.

EMILY SILVERMAN, MD
Dr. Silverman is an academic hospitalist at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, where she seeks out projects that resurrect the narrative soul of medicine. (Photo: http://thenocturnists.com/team/)

The day-to-day of internship, residency, and an MD career doesn’t allow much time to process the effect it’s having on the practitioner.  Rushing from one patient to the next, putting out the fires even while drinking from the firehose, and being selfless in service to the patients’ needs means that one’s own stories are buried, neglected.  More and more, however, medicine is acknowledging the need for practitioners to examine and tell their stories so that they can learn from them, teach their lessons to others, and show colleagues that they are not alone.  In 2015 Dr. Emily Silverman was in her second year of her internal medicine residency at UCSF.  She found herself with a little more time following her frenetic intern year, and with her own stories that had gone untold and unexamined.  She started to write, first in a blog she called The Nocturnists.  Then, in 2016 she organized the first live storytelling session with her colleagues.

Now, in 2018, those live sessions–held in theaters with fun music and a bar, but most importantly, distant from the hospital– are playing to sellout crowds.  Not only do the shows allow for catharsis, but for community.  And because Dr. Silverman isn’t ready to allow The University of Iowa to be a satellite venue (and believe us, we asked), we’re grateful that The Nocturnists is also a podcast!  Each episode feature a piece from the live show, followed by a relaxed, thoughtful discussion between Dr. Silverman and the storyteller.  Her email to Dave earlier this spring to tell The Short Coats about The Nocturnists was a wonderful break from the usual pitches for Caribbean med schools and Ivy League pay-to-play programs; and it gave Kylie Miller, Brendan George, Marisa Evers, and Sanjeeva Weerasinghe a great opportunity to discuss what it is The Nocturnists are thinking about.

We Want to Hear From You

If you could get up on stage and tell your story, what would you say?  Well, we have a stage!  Tell the world–call 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.

Continue reading Emily Silverman, MD, and The Nocturnists →

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Med Student Parents, Part 2 | Plan for Debt but Don’t Worry

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This time, a mom’s point of view.

doctor computer photo
Photo by j.reed

On our last show, we fielded a question from Courtney who wants to go to med school but is worried about being a mom and a med student.  We got one dad’s perspective then, and now it’s time for mom.  Dr. Maya Lopez (CCOM MD ’04) was another non-trad entering school with a supportive husband and a few bundles of joy.  She told Eric Schnieders, Tucker Dangremond, and Sanjeeva Weerasinghe how she dove headlong into med school, how she and her husband (along with a village) made parenting and med school work for them.

To top it off, we got another question from Clovis (not his real  name) who was worried that he’d either have to join the military or sell all of his internal organs to afford medical school…unless we could come up with some other options for him.  CCOM debt counselor Chris Roling had some good news (not to mention advice) for him.

This Week in Medical News

The medical education world is humming with the news that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has reversed a long-standing prohibition against students contributing to patients’ medical records.  Boring?  Maybe, but it’s going to change how clerkships are done and the ease with which students make the transition to residency in the very near future.

We Want to Hear From You

Do you have worries we can soothe (or stoke)? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime, visit our Facebook group, or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  We’re ready to give free (and perhaps even good) advice!

Continue reading Med Student Parents, Part 2 | Plan for Debt but Don’t Worry →