The Short Coat: An Inside Look at Getting Into and Getting Through Medical School

A question from listener Blake--do we use Anki or Brainscape for studying?--led to a discussion of the various tools and techniques Aline Sandouk (MD/PhD student), Nick Lind, Madeline Cusimano, and Mason LaMarche (all M2s) use to shove medical knowledge into their brains. And the co-hosts get some practice with their patient communication skills using questions posed by Yahoo! Answers users. This...

Happy Thanksgiving, bishes! Uh, uh, nope, I’m out. Photo by chumlee10 FYI, there’s new merch for charity (stickers!) at at theshortcoat.com/store! Also, It’s Thanksgiving Day in the United States of America, and as we ‘muricans collapse on our sofas replete with turkey with all the trimmings, let us give thanks that M1s Nathen Spitz and Morgan Kennedy, and MD/PhD student Al...

Good intentions are everywhere. Good behavior...well, that's more complicated. Such is the case with microaggressions, the term coined by Harvard University psychiatrist Chester Pierce in 1970 to describe minor yet hurtful comments. Pierce's original definition encompassed statements aimed at African Americans, but of course one can accidentally or purposefully put down any minority individual--wo...

We on The Short Coat Podcast like to encourage people to follow their med school dreams in spite of whatever apparent obstacles stand in the way. So when we found out that Jessica McCabe, host of the popular YouTube channel How to ADHD, was coming to the University of Iowa, we were excited to get her on the show. And with co-hosts Irene Morcuende and Kelsey Adler--both successful medical students...

Today's show features multiple screams, so don't freak out. Because it's Halloweeeeeeeen! Co-hosts Hillary O'Brien, Jenna Johnson, Elizabeth Shirazi, and newbie Erica Noyes (all M1s) tell their scary med student stories for your entertainment. And Short Coat MD Wannabe has a serious question about her future, as her post-bacc program is proving harder than expected. This Week in Medical News: Mort...

Second year students Abby Fyfe, Mason LaMarche, and Madeline Cusimano offer their advice to first-year Morgan Kennedy, who confesses that she's feeling the burn of being an M1. And Mason discusses the opportunities he's had to present his undergraduate work at conferences, a good way to stand out from other pre-medical applicants. And it doesn't have to be bench or clinical science, either, as Mas...

Short Coat Scribbleson Wordsonpaper (not his real name) wrote a paper for one of his classes, and was told it'd be worth putting it out there for publication. But where, and how? So we asked Writing and Humanities Program Director (and SCP exec producer) Cate Dicharry to give some guidance. Scribbleson's second question, about the lifestyle factors that medical students weigh when making a special...

Two questions this week from Short Coats! Listener Luis wrote in to ask what books co-hosts Hillary O'Brien, Kylie Miller, Emma Barr and newbie Sahaana Arumugam consulted to find their paths. And Mia wrote to theshortcoats@gmail.com to find out more about MS/DO or MS/MD programs and what they look for in their applicants. And can we find patient-care uses for weird proverbs? No, we can't. But it w...

Fourth-year students David Rudolph and Chandini Reddy join co-hosts Brendan George and LJ Agistonelli to answer listener Krista's question--a self-confessed "loud mouth" with radical hopes about how she'd like to practice medicine one day. Can she bring those ideals to life, or will she be drummed out of medicine. And is it even practical for her to consider this career given her age and backgroun...

A cliche, of course, but true. Because without the nurses (and other people) doing their jobs to help the doctor, the doctor can't do nuthin'--no IVs, no regular BP checks, no comfortable patients, no monitoring while they're home sleeping, no nothing. Listener Amber stops by to ask what med students learn about nurses and how to work with them, and of course M4s Hillary O'Brien and Kylie Miller a...

Co-host and MD/PhD student Miranda Schene is a woman who has obviously been raised well. So when her mother, Ginny, wrote to theshortcoats@gmail.com asking about the surprises med school had in store for this week's gang, Dave--who also loves his mother--couldn't very well say no! M1 Nathan Spitz and M2 Jenna Mullins, along with new co-host M1 Bryn Myers join in to give Mama Ginny the deets. Plus...

Some of the most important contributions to knowledge have come at a terrible price. The BBC featured a story on their site about an anatomy atlas that was created by a Nazi doctor, and the images within are those of hundreds of dissected political prisoners. The very conditions in Hitler's concentration camps may have been among the reasons why these illustrations are so detailed. It is a terribl...

Elders are not just sickly adults. Ours is an aging society, and as the populations skews older, medicine has begun to realize that treating elder patients isn't the same as treating adults or children. Treating the conditions of older people means that clinicians have to understand them in ways that go beyond diseases and drugs. Hence, the science of geriatrics. Dr. Louise Aronson is a geriatrici...

The first step in med school The Carver College of Medicine held its 25th annual White Coat Ceremony at Hancher Auditorium for first-year students beginning their medical education at Iowa on Friday, August 16, 2019 Ceremonies are important.  If you’re like Dave, you think they’re a bit of a pain–you have to dress up and keep a straight face.  But as a bit of (lengthy) symbolism,...

Brandon Bacalzo and Angeline Vanle join the team as incoming medical students. Luckily for them they have the chance to put questions about med school to M2 Nick Lind and M3 Brady Campbell, including how to find the new study habits they'll need to succeed. Ethical objections to a controversial practice in medical education have been simmering for a while, so we discuss how medical students should...

For those who have been out of the student game for a while, or who feel they need a little extra time to get acclimated to the fast pace of medical education, there are programs like our Intro to Medical Education at Iowa. Whatever an individual school calls it, these programs can act as a bridge between your life before med school to the rigours of learning medicine. On this episode that Dave fo...

When listener Caven wrote in asking why CCOM graduates don't include hardly any specialists and why they all seemed to be going into primary care, Dave was puzzled. While it's true that a state school like ours, serving a rural part of the country, emphasizes primary care, he knew that not 'everyone' goes into primary care. On further questioning, it turns out Caven's info came from the Medical Sc...

Our charitable mission is supported in this episode by CommonBond.co/scp. Be sure to pay them a visit to learn more about their new medical school loan, and tell 'em we sent you! Admissions counselor Megan Kosovski joins the fun to help LJ Agostinelli, Aline Sandouk, and new co-host Armin Avdic answer some listener questions. Claire, for instance, wants to know if she needs to quit her job as a ra...

Continuing our recent discussion on the price of healthcare in the United States, on this episode we talk with Dr. Martin Makary. Dr. Makary is a surgeon at Johns Hopkins, a best-selling author, and a health policy expert. Dr. Makary's latest book entitled The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health Care--and How to Fix It, is due out in September. We were so glad to talk with him, because it's a...

We're devoting this episode to the perils of love between med students and their non-medical partners. Despite the clickbait title (don't hate the player, hate the game), it isn't destined to end badly! It just takes lots and lots of patience, communication, and sacrifice, not to mention a plan. Kelsey Adler, Madeline Slater, Terry Hayes, and new co-host Chris Schanbacher--all married or in commit...

Dan Weissmann is a former NPR journalist who was interested in the crazy world of healthcare costs in America. He'd suggested to his former bosses that he start covering people's stories of dealing with their medical care and it's often unpredictably wallet-sucking expenses, reasoning that the subject is one we all can relate to. Plus, he though, it's a damn important topic with political, economi...

The news that students at Oregon Health and Science University will now be subject to 'compassion tests' in order to graduate got Dave thinking about test anxiety. As schools pile on the examinations, how do students deal with the stress? Dabin Choi, Gabe Conley, Claire Casteneda, and Erik Kneller discuss meditation, sleep, prayer, and eating habits that keep them from letting the fear derail them...

When listener Caven wrote in asking why CCOM graduates don't include hardly any specialists and why they all seemed to be going into primary care, Dave was puzzled. While it's true that a state school like ours, serving a rural part of the country, emphasizes primary care, he knew that not 'everyone' goes into primary care. On further questioning, it turns out Caven's info came from the Medical Sc...

The thing about conspiracies that's hard to combat is that there is sometimes a kernel of truth in them that makes them more believable. Dave found some unfortunate 'facts' about medicine and doctors on a random website , and asked Miranda Schene, Kyle Kinder, Nick Lind, and Dr. John Pienta not to refute them, but to discuss the little nugget of truthiness they're based on. Warning: in the end, we...

Cultural competency is a tough thing to teach, but so important. Today's physician (and med students!) encounter patients from wide range of backgrounds, any of which could come into play in a patient-provider interaction. In this episode, Brent asks how med students learn about the nuances that come with treating people of different backgrounds, from ethnicity to gender to religion to disability....