Academic Medicine Podcast

Maybe this letter is more a letter to myself, a reminder … that mentorship is the key to training good, competent, humane surgeons. That this extra effort is what will create change, sustainability, and at the end of the pathway, is what will be remembered. That this is the type of person and surgeon I want to be. Adam Goldstein, director of the Trauma Surgery Unit at The Wolfson Medical Center in...

The medical record from the day before includes a note from the chaplain who wrote that you smiled. I resolve to end more notes this way. The patient smiled. Medical student Molly Fessler reflects on the profound experience of caring for a patient during their final days. This essay placed second in the 2022 Hope Babette Tang Humanism in Healthcare Essay Contest and was published in the November 2...

Guests Luca Petrey and Laura Weingartner, PhD, MS, join hosts Toni Gallo and Research in Medical Education (RIME) Committee members Arianne Teherani, PhD, and Daniele Olveczky, MD, to discuss a new scoping review of the literature on the inclusion of standardized patient characters and actors with diverse gender identities in simulation cases. A transcript of this episode is available at academicm...

It is more likely emotional overload rather than apathy or insensitivity that prompts these contradictory expressions of emotion. An involuntary attempt to achieve a type of emotional homeostasis. Sadaf Qureshi, a hematologist/oncologist at Summit Health in Florham Park, New Jersey, reflects on "appropriate" responses to misfortune. The essay read in this episode was published in the Teaching and...

So often, we get caught up in studying and updating the medical chart. When we get to know our patients as human beings, however, we realize that providing care goes beyond triple-checking medication dosages. A human being is the product of every person, every success, and every misfortune he or she has encountered. Theodora Lananh Swenson, a fourth-year resident physician in the Department of Phy...

I was glad that I was too tired to speak at the close of the day, because by listening, I learned a lesson in humility. Madam A's family was more knowledgeable about her than we were, treating her as a person who had hopes just like the rest of us, despite being bedbound. Norshima Nashi, a consultant in the Division of Advanced Internal Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the National Univer...

Guests Addie McClintock, MD, and Joshua Jauregui, MD, join hosts Toni Gallo and Research in Medical Education (RIME) Committee members Andrea Leep, MD, and Paolo Martin, PhD, MS CHPR, MEd, to discuss clinical teachers' behaviors and how they support or harm students' sense of psychological safety in the clinical learning environment. This is the first episode in a 3-part series of discussions with...

As I progress through my training, I see more clearly how I benefited from my intern year; my comfort with ventilator settings and ability to navigate goals-of-care discussions are a direct result of my pandemic cases. However, when I am asked how my residency has been, I am haunted by the memories of those who can no longer answer. Michelle I. Suh, a second-year resident in the Department of Emer...

Remembering my own medical experiences is an insistent reminder that disease is not mundane, no matter how desensitized we may grow to it. Tom Fouché, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, reflects on his dual identities of provider and patient and how not keeping them separated makes him a better physician. The essay read in t...

Guests Katherine Hoops, MD, MPH, Andra Blomkalns, MD, MBA, and Allison Augustus-Wallace, PhD, MS, MNS, join host Toni Gallo to talk about firearm safety and injury prevention education. They discuss the role of physicians in engaging patients and communities in firearm injury risk reduction, the current state of firearm injury prevention education, and where the academic medicine community needs t...

When faculty members open themselves up to the idea that the work we do in seemingly different realms can actually enhance our practice, we arguably do our greatest service to the development of others' gardens. Sarah-Ann Keyes, assistant professor in the School of Health Professions at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, reflects on how difficult it can be for faculty members in academi...

After this patient encounter, I came to realize that my greatest strength, my finest therapeutic tool, was me—all of me. Omar Sahak, a first-year fellow in the Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and Child Development in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California reflects on how sometimes the best way to help a patie...

Next time a patient thanks me, I will not let self-conscious worries diminish their words. True thankfulness reflects deep humanistic connection and is unburdened by the hierarchies of medicine. Paulina M. Devlin, a first-year obstetrics and gynecology resident at the University of Utah Health in Salt Lake City, Utah, reflects on the expression of gratitude between patients and providers. The essa...

Guests Chirag Bhat, MD, and Warren Cheung, MD, MMEd, join hosts Toni Gallo and associate editor Teresa Chan, MD, MHPE, to discuss their research into nurses' perspectives about giving feedback on residents' clinical performance. They share their findings regarding the unique perspective nurses can offer, the barriers nurses face in providing feedback, and some possible ways to overcome these barri...

Despite the emotional challenges that my anatomy course presented, I feel reaffirmed in my desire to pursue medicine and now understand the beautiful complexity of the human body in a way I never could have before. Keldon K. Lin, a second-year medical student at the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine in Scottsdale, Arizona, reflects on the common humanity that all patients, both living and dead,...

As tears seeped from the corners of her eyes and stained her cheeks, I felt powerless. I reached for her hand, wishing I could offer my bare human hand instead of an impersonal blue latex glove. Holding her hand was the only thing I could do in the moment; I hoped it made her feel less alone. Natalie C. Spach, a fourth-year medical student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School...

The resident came into my room with one question and he got it answered. The rest was not his problem. But it was my problem. Arthur Garson Jr, clinical professor of health systems and population health sciences in the College of Medicine at the University of Houston in Houston, Texas, reflects on the importance of two-way communication between patients and physicians. The essay read in this episo...

Our patients should not be our blind spots. Even with the most thorough routines, I may not catch important clues—be it some subtle discomfort or altered affect—without keen observation, clues that may drastically change a patient's story and care. Alan Z. Yang, a second-year medical student at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, discusses the importance of observing and truly seeing...

Guests Lala Forrest and Joe Geraghty join host Toni Gallo to discuss the journal's Trainee Letters to the Editor feature. They highlight selected letters submitted in response to last year's call for submissions about the role of trainees as agents of change and discuss how institutions can empower trainees to be leaders and how trainees can get started leading change efforts. Lala and Joe also in...

Our words and actions may strike others, or strike back at us, in unexpected ways. We must therefore always be ready to show our most human sides: to absorb surprising responses, lean into awkward moments, and apologize when we have erred. Aldis H. Petriceks, a third-year medical student at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, discusses the importance of setting aside the structure of...

In the following months, I started noticing a subtle change in the way my patients and the community saw me. I went from being called the doctor to our doctor. Sharon Reece, assistant professor in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine in the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Northwest in Fayetteville, Arkansas, reflects on what she learned during her...

These golden minutes were not only setting a realtime example of intersecting roles and responsibilities but opening a window into a version of mentorship unique to virtual platforms, a kind of role-modeling that revealed granular moments of sacrifice, struggle, and negotiation. Yoshiko Iwai, a second-year medical student at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, North...

In the ensuing weeks, I continued with my work, behaving as if the incident had no impact on me while clamping down the embarrassment of being called a racial slur in front of my team. When others asked how I was doing, I said that I was fine in an attempt to make it go away. Takesha Valentine Cooper, program director of the Psychiatry Residency Training Program and chair of medical school admissi...

Guests Will Bynum, MD, and Joe Jackson, MD, join host Toni Gallo to discuss new research into the nature of shame experiences in medical students and emerging work on the implications of premedical students' shame experiences for their professional development. They offer advice for educators and learners for naming, normalizing, and addressing the effects of shame and provide suggestions for fost...

This episode was originally released in August 2019. Guests Will Bynum, MD, Lara Varpio, PhD, and Ashley Adams, MD, join Toni Gallo and former Academic Medicine editor-in-chief David Sklar, MD, to discuss shame in medicine and medical education, what it is and isn't, how it can be studied, and their research and other work in this area. Read the articles discussed in this episode:  Bynum WE IV, Ad...