Medicus

In this episode, we sat down with fellow Medicus team member Dave Lee to discuss his experience with pediatric cancer (specifically ALL).  Dave shares his perspective as a former patient and now as a physician in training.  We get into some pretty interesting discussions (I especially enjoyed his thoughts on the role that labels play in our identification process).  Additionally, we...

On this episode we take a look into complementary and alternative medicine. Does hypnosis actually work? Can a certain herbal medicine make me live longer? These are some of the questions we ask Dr. Kit Lee, a Family Medicine physician at Loyola University Medical Center. While medical education programs spend little class time addressing non-traditional therapies, the NIH’s National Center for Co...

If you've ever watched any crime show, you're probably familiar with the stereotype of the pathologist - alone in the recesses of the hospital, dissecting the deceased. Thanks largely to this stereotype (we are looking at you CSI), this has lead to the misconception that pathology is boring and lonely. But in the real world, this could not be further from the truth.  We sat down with Dr. Kamran Mi...

In this 4th year medical student (MS4) specialty episode, we investigate the field of Pediatrics. Our specialty series with 4th year medical students consists of three parts. Part I consists of a discussion about the field. Here, we will learn about the reasons why our guests have decided to pursue a career in this specialty, likes/dislikes about the field, and common stereotypes surrounding the f...

Nolan Adams is a 4th year student at the Loyola Stritch School of Medicine who will be entering Loyola's ophthalmology residency after a transitional year program at Presence Resurrection Hospital. He is originally from Rockford, IL and entered medical school after a gap year working as a Certified Nursing Assistant following his graduation from Northwestern University. He found ophthalmology earl...

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve probably heard a lot of debate about the skyrocketing cost of healthcare in the United States. With the expansion of Medicaid and other reforms that were a part of the Affordable Care Act, many people gained access to government-subsidized health insurance,. But that doesn’t mean that going to the doctor is any cheaper.  In the complex web of insurance...

In this 4th year medical student (MS4) specialty episode, we investigate the field of Neurology. Our specialty series with 4th year medical students consists of three parts. Part I consists of a discussion about the field. Here, we will learn about the reasons why our guests have decided to a pursue a career in this specialty, likes/dislikes about the field, and common stereotypes surrounding the...

Anybody who has taken an Anatomy course can tell you about their eccentric Anatomy professor. It seems that a unique personality is a prerequisite to teaching this course that has been a vital part of the medical school curriculum for so long. On this episode of Medicus, Neal and our guest host, Hye-Jin Yun, welcome Dr. Dauzvardis, anatomy professor at the Stritch School of Medicine. Together they...

We're back! Alek, Neal, Josh, Nate, and Mara have all made it to the other side of the Step 1 exam. We took a few weeks off for studying and recovering but we are happy to be back, and this time with some new Medicus team members! Meet Rasa and Dave, fellow med students here to help us create new Medicus content to bring to you each week. On this episode we recap our experiences with the USMLE Ste...

With 500 medical students getting an MD/MBA combined degree every year, along with many attending physicians enrolling in executive MBA programs, it is increasingly common to see practicing physicians taking a role in healthcare administration. Today we invited Nelly Gonzalez who pioneered her own dual degree program here at Loyola to talk about her experience and the importance of having people w...

In September 2018 our local chapter of Physicians for Human Rights hosted an event where guest speaker Amal Kassir gave a talk called “The Syrian Refugee Crisis and Islamophobia.” A few members of the Medicus team were at this event and we thought her message was worth sharing, so we’ve decided to play the audio from this event on the podcast. She delivers her message with a mixture of poetry and...

In this 4th year medical student (MS4) specialty episode, we investigate the field of Internal Medicine. Our specialty series with 4th year medical students consists of three parts. Part I is a discussion about the field. Here, we will learn about the reasons why our guests have decided to a pursue a career in this specialty, likes/dislikes about the field, and common stereotypes surrounding the f...

Listen as current medical student Blake Murphy coaches us on how to get educated about healthcare policy and become involved in advocacy. Serving as this year's Government Relations Advocacy Fellow (GRAF) for the American Medical Association (AMA), she has been learning how policy is informed and enacted at the national level. Our discussion will leave you eager to become involved with issues impa...

If you ask most medical students why they decided to go to medical school, there’s a good chance that they will say it was, at least in part, to help an underserved population.   While every patient population has its own unique features and challenges, one demographic that is often overlooked is prison inmates.    In this episode, we sat down with Dr. Chad Zawitz (Assistant Pr...

Many physicians will tell you that there will come a time where you are so fatigued mentally, physically and emotionally that you begin to lose sight of why you pursued a career in medicine in the first place.  These moments are extremely challenging and can leave you feeling isolated, disengaged from your work, and full of more questions than answers.  In this episode we sat down with D...

Every medical student knows of that one hurdle that can make or break their aspirations of getting into the specialty or program of their choice. It’s the bane of existence for every medical student in their first two years of medical school. That hurdle is the USMLE Step 1. The United States Medical Licensure Exam - Step 1, is a standardized exam that is administered by the National Board of Medi...

Part of being a physician is establishing a balance between personal life and work life. On this episode of Medicus, Dr. Bernadette Aulivola joins us to discuss how she is able to manage her roles as a mother and wife, while also being a physician in the demanding field of vascular surgery. Dr. Aulivola also dives into a variety of other topics such as her clinical area of interest, which is to sa...

There are many different types of hospitals in the United States, most of which fall under the broad categories of for-profit, not-for-profit, and government-owned (Department of Veterans Affairs "VA"). Although only a select demographic can utilize government-owned hospitals, our VA hospitals are a major component of the US healthcare system. From the US Department of Veteran Affairs website, “Th...

Welcome to Part 2 of our Valentine’s Day Special!  Here we explore what it’s like to be a parent while attending medical school and residency. For insight into this topic, we have brought in two “physicians in training” who have a three year old daughter and another baby on the way. We sure learned a lot from our incredibly talented and dedicated guests, and know you will too!

In the Part 1 of our Valentine’s Day Special, we learn about managing relationships and getting married while in medical school. We discuss the obstacles, thought processes, and joys of planning a wedding from the perspective of two amazing (and hilarious) guests. From doing long-distance, transitioning to new jobs and cities, and having their perfect wedding, they've done it all. www.medicuspodca...

In this 4th year medical student (MS4) specialty episode, we investigate the field of Emergency Medicine. Our guests in this episode, Shea Boles and Chase Thorson, are completing their medical education at the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Shea is a native of Sonoma, California, and completed her undergraduate degree at Santa Clara University. Before coming to medical schoo...

Medical training is a stressful process. Sometimes we get lost in the grind and rely on taking each task one at a time, only focusing on what is directly in front of us. When we let our own stressors consume us it is easier to forget about the challenges that others around us are facing. It can be a shock to find out that our classmates are also dealing with difficult circumstances outside of scho...

One of the most difficult questions that patients can ask a healthcare provider is “why me?”. To complicate things further, this question is often posed with spiritual or religions undertones, i.e. “why is X, Y, Z god doing this to me?” While healthcare providers seek to treat the physical, at one point in their career they will be challenged to respond to questions of spiritual and religious doub...

For students hoping to go through the rigorous process of becoming a physician, the challenge begins before they even set foot in a school. Navigating the application process is a daunting task. In 2018, medical schools in the US admitted, on average, just 4.1% of the applicants to their school ( https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/ ). That translates to 41% of the total 52,777 ap...

In this 4th year medical student (MS4) specialty episode, we investigate the field of General Surgery with two students who are pursuing this as a career. Our guests for this episode, Steven Marincel and Allison Zarnke, are completing their medical education at the Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. For advice, tips, and a glimpse into the lives of medical students pursuing...