Tag Archives: Sarah Upton

Imposter Syndrome, Uncomfortable Fails, and Med School’s Real Ups and Downs

Audio September 3, 2026 Dave Etler

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:26 — 83.6MB)

Podcast (video): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:26 — 8.8GB)

New medical students hear the slings and arrows straight from second- and third-years

The Short Coat records in front of a live audience — a room full of brand-new medical students at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine during orientation week. Dave is joined by M3 Zach Grissom, M3 Sarah Upton, M2 Sophie Hueser, and first-time co-host M2 Sudeep Gadde, and together they map the ups and downs of med school across three fronts: the identity shift of becoming a doctor, the grind of the education system itself, and the way a personal life bends (but doesn’t break!) around all of it.

Isolation comes up first— Zach on rotations where he’s the only med student in the room with no classmates to lean on, Sophie on watching pre-med friends peel off into “big kid jobs” while she’s still logging into ICON, the hierarchy of attendings, senior residents, fellows, interns, and sub-Is that can make a clinical team feel like a stack of people keeping tabs on you. Also, failure gets its own segment: Zach walks through hitting 30% on his first neuro exam, and later on another rotation, intubating a patient’s esophagus instead of their trachea — followed minutes later by two clean IV sticks. Sophie’s biggest fail of the year? Forgetting her dad’s birthday, the day of an anatomy exam.

Speaking of anatomy, the crew gets into what it’s actually like in the lab — the respect built into how donors are covered and discussed, the new vocabulary that makes the whole subject click by the end of the semester, and why nobody in the room passed out (a low bar, gratefully cleared). Also covered: doom-scrolling defense strategies (several apps gets endorsements), the comparison trap of watching classmates race through UWorld while they’re treading water, and what it actually takes to be married, parent two kids, and still pass boards — Zach’s honest answer: some days you’re a mediocre student, a mediocre husband, and a mediocre dad, and that’s a win.

Episode credits:

Producer: Dave Etler
Co-hosts: Zach Grissom, Sarah Upton, Sophia Hueser, Sudeep Gadde
Production: SCP Media Lab–Anna Royer, Cyrus Barati, Isa Perez-Sandi, Zach Grissom, Sarah Upton, Srishti Mathur, David Lee, and Jacob Thompson

Timestamps

00:00 — Live audience special: Short Coat’s first-ever taping for orientation week
03:04 — Isolation vs. belonging on clinical rotations and in the MSTP track
09:49 — Medical hierarchy explained: attendings, residents, fellows, and sub-Is
16:33 — Imposter syndrome and the trap of comparing yourself to classmates
23:26 — Study motivation apps and beating doom-scrolling during exam week
31:16 — What anatomy lab is really like, from donor respect to dissection nerves
35:38 — Failure in med school: failed exams, a wrong-pipe intubation, and a forgotten birthday
48:07 — Balancing marriage, parenting, and medical school

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast belong solely to the individuals who share them. They do not represent the positions of the University of Iowa, the Carver College of Medicine, or the State of Iowa. All discussions are intended for entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Nothing said on this podcast should be used to diagnose, treat, or prevent any medical condition. Always seek qualified professional guidance for personal decisions.

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The Short Coat Podcast is FeedSpot’s Top Iowa Student Podcast, and its Top Iowa Medical Podcast! Thanks for listening!

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Short Coat Podcast

From Bartending to Bedside: What Our Pre-Med Jobs Taught Us About Medicine (Recess Rehash)

Audio August 13, 2026 Dave Etler

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:06 — 60.7MB)

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Podcast (video): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:07 — 456.5MB)

[Dave’s out of the office this week, so please enjoy this previously released episode!]

No med student starts with a blank slate

If you’re thinking of starting over and going to med school, you might wonder what your previous jobs have done to prepare you for it. Good news: your old jobs and activities might matter more than your GPA ever will.

In this episode, M2s Samantha Gardner, Sarah Upton, Nick Lembezeder, and Srishti Mathur unpack the skills they didn’t know they’d use in medicine—the ones they gained by being not-a-doctor. From surviving music juries to calming drunk uncs, from educating bros about consent to making the hard calls without enough information, they’ve found the road to medicine is rarely straight—and that’s probably a good thing.

Also, why confidence is overrated and how to react when given feedback (hint: STFU). Oh, and we hear from a listener who wants to know if we were super studious in high school. We try to let him down gently.

Episode credits:

Producer: Dave Etler
Co-hosts: Srishti Mathur, Nick Lembezeder, Samantha Gardner, Sarah Upton

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast belong solely to the individuals who share them. They do not represent the official positions of the University of Iowa, the Carver College of Medicine, or the State of Iowa. All discussions are intended for entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Nothing said on this podcast should be used to diagnose, treat, or prevent any medical condition. Always seek qualified professional guidance for personal decisions.

We Want to Hear From You: YOUR VOICE MATTERS!

The Short Coat Podcast is FeedSpot’s Top Iowa Student Podcast, and its Top Iowa Medical Podcast! Thanks for listening!

Continue reading →

Short Coat Podcast

Game of Med School — We Actually Made It

Audio June 18, 2026 Dave Etler

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:19:32 — 117.7MB)

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We road-test a card game to show pre-meds what medical school actually feels like

You draw a card: “You are assigned a 28-hour call shift.” Is that plus four points or minus four? It depends entirely on who you are — and that’s kind of the point. The Short Coats (Well, Dave) has been talking about this idea for a while–can we make a card game that captures the twists and turns of medical school? Well, we’ve given it a try, and now we finally play it — the Game of Med School, a prototype card-based playthrough of the full medical school path, from premed clubs to residency match. Cyrus Barati, who helped build the game, takes on the Gunner identity and immediately gets routed to clinical years while still underwater on points. M4 Fallon Jung (pregnant, unbothered) draws the Resilient Student card and somehow converts a failed Step exam into a net positive. M3s Sarah Upton and Zach Grissom round out the cast, with Zach’s Non-Traditional Student racking up an improbable collection of degrees, nursing licenses, and EMT certifications before anyone gets to medical school proper.

The cards lead to real conversations: What’s a post-bacc worth on an application? How do you handle a professionalism flag? What actually happens when your PI moves states mid-MD-PhD? How do you tell a patient bad news — and does a med student ever actually have to? Does your identity change any of that? Sure, the game has bugs (too many negative cards, the routing logic skips too much), and the crew catches them all in real time. But there’s also laughs and insights, so that’s fine.

By the end, everyone graduated (naturally), the points got bumped to 2x, and Dave admitted the whole thing will need another iteration. Would you play this game? Listener feedback is always welcome at theshortcoat.com/tellus!

Episode credits:

Producer: Cyrus Barati, Dave Etler
Co-hosts: Cyrus Barati, Zach Grissom, Sarah Upton, Fallon Jung
Production: SCP Media Lab–Anna Royer, Cyrus Barati, Isa Perez-Sandi, Zach Grissom, Sarah Upton, Srishti Mathur, David Lee, and Jacob Thompson

We Want to Hear From You: YOUR VOICE MATTERS!

The Short Coat Podcast is FeedSpot’s Top Iowa Student Podcast, and its Top Iowa Medical Podcast! Thanks for listening!

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Short Coat Podcast

Medical Students and Love: Do Their Spouses Really Know Them?

Audio February 12, 2026 Dave Etler

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:16:48 — 107.4MB)

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The Heart Wants What It Wants.

In this Valentine’s Day episode, four medical students sit down to play the ultimate compatibility game—answering questions their partners answered about them ahead of time. From whether they’re optimists or realists about med school (some hedging here), to what their dens would look like as animals (things got weird), these spouses and significant others prove they actually know their medical students pretty well. Mostly. There’s a Punsesee…Puncsa…Punxsutawney Phil appearance, some passionate love for hobby farms, and one unfortunate name mix-up to kick off the whole episode.

Whether you’re a pre-med wondering how people maintain relationships during the madness of medical school, or you just want to hear some genuinely funny banter about med school couples, M1 Anna Royer and M2s Samantha Gardner, Sarah Upton, and Alexis Baker (and spouses Nathan, Nick, Kyle, and Caleb–er, Cade) are here for you. You’ll hear how these medical students actually talk to their partners about school (spoiler: sometimes too much about bones), what they’d do with more time in their day, and why you should never ask a them to draw your portrait. It’s proof that love can absolutely survive medical education.

Episode credits:

Producer: Dave Etler
Co-hosts: Samantha Gardner, Sarah Upton, Anna Royer, Alexis Baker

We Want to Hear From You: YOUR VOICE MATTERS!

The Short Coat Podcast is FeedSpot’s Top Iowa Student Podcast, and its Top Iowa Medical Podcast! Thanks for listening!

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Short Coat Podcast

Another Path to Med School: Masters of Clinical Anatomy

Audio December 26, 2025 Dave Etler

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:10:06 — 97.7MB)

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An alternative to postbac programs?

Postbac programs are okay, but what if there was another path to medical school? M2s Sarah Upton, Alec Marticoff, and Kevin Gubner host the program directors of the Carver College of Medicine’s Masters of Clinical Anatomy Program. Interestingly, each co-host decided to get a MCA to make up for some shortcomings in their med school applications, whether it was soft a GPA or a lack of applicable hard science education.

To do that, they could have done any number of things–like an expensive post-baccalaureate program that offers no degree–but instead they chose to seek an MCA degree to pave their way to medical school. Co-directors Marc Pizzimenti and Emma Handler visited with The Short Coat to discuss the program, what it’s like for students, and the additional skills that they got, including instruction in teaching…something they wouldn’t have gotten in a postbac program.

In the end, the MCA program not only taught them anatomy–something they’d definitely need as physicians someday–but also helped them fix their undergrad shortcomings, readied them for the rigors of studying medicine, and built their teaching skills–all with an incredible student-faculty ratio they wouldn’t have gotten in many other degree programs. Plus they get to tack on some sweet letters after their names!

Episode credits:

Producer: Sarah Upton
Co-hosts: Alec Marticoff, Kevin Gubner
Guests: Marc Pizzimenti, PhD, MA, BEd; Emma Handler, PhD

We Want to Hear From You: YOUR VOICE MATTERS!

The Short Coat Podcast is FeedSpot’s Top Iowa Student Podcast, and its Top Iowa Medical Podcast! Thanks for listening!

Continue reading →

Short Coat Podcast

Med Student Leaders: Juggling Roles at School and Home

Audio November 6, 2025 Dave Etler

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:04:01 — 87.9MB)

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Is work-life “balance” the right framing?

Is “work-life balance” a myth in medical school? What do successful students do to manage leadership positions, marriage, kids, and academics?

Our co-hosts–M2s Zach Grissom, Megan Perry, Sarah Upton, and Chase Larsson–lead specialty interest groups, student government, advocacy organizations, and their learning communities; all of their roles compete for their time. Then someone asks if they want to start a new thing, and somehow they say yes. even if they say no. It’s a mystery how that happens.

We break down what happens when “getting involved” becomes “drowning in responsibility,” especially with that otherwise pretty sweet 18-month preclinical timeline that makes succession planning feel like a game of musical chairs with first-years who are still learning how to med school.

But here’s where it gets interesting. These aren’t just resume builders—our students are genuinely passionate about their causes, from organ donation advocacy to single-payer healthcare organizing to…podcasting! They’re learning that leadership isn’t about balance; it’s about accommodation. Sometimes the leadership thing gets bumped for the anatomy exam. Sometimes you’re editing a newsletter while your kid bounces off the walls. Sometimes you realize you’re not actually superhuman, and that’s okay.

Also, Short Coat listener Evan asks us how do we manage a parenting, marriage, and medical school without losing your minds? Our conversation gets brutally honest about the reality of parenting through M1 year, the myth of work-life balance, and why some students might feel “infantilized” by the medical school experience while others are changing car batteries in business attire between classes or trying to meal prep while being tutored (that doesn’t work, BTW).