The Short Coat

Due to the Thanksgiving Holiday, we weren’t in the studio to record a new show last week. Instead, enjoy this rerun! Med school life hacks are all about maximizing efficiency, minimizing friction. TL;DR * Eliminate unnecessary friction to the completion of a task* Paying others to do other life tasks can be helpful* Saying no is as important as maximizing efficiency. Today we explore the things that med students do to maximize their efficiency. These are the small steps they take to eliminate friction to completing chores, focusing attention where it’s needed instead of where your brain wants it to be, and eliminating those tasks that just aren’t that important to them. M4 Mackenzie Walhof, MD/PhD student Aline Sandouk, M2 Nicole Hines, and M2 AJ Chowdhury explore with Dave their own personal life hacks. Also, Dave ran famous doctors’ photos multiple times through an app that makes caricatures until they were no longer recognizable, then made videos of the progression. How fast can the crew identify them when the video is reversed? Play along at home on our Instagram. View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Short Coat Podcast (@theshortcoat) We Want to Hear From You How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email thesh...

Any job can be a good premed job, but what about for the future physician scientist? TL;DR Happy Thanksgiving! We discuss the MD/PhD life, and the jobs that will prepare a hopeful MD/PhD student while also giving the admissions committees something to love. We diss Thanksgiving while still loving it, including a special Turkey Day pop quiz. Happy Thanksgiving! Now, settle down, we don’t mean to poop on anyone’s holiday traditions, but we are going to make fun of Thanksgiving and acknowledge it’s teensy little problems. Also, MD/PhD student Riley Behan, M1s Noah Wick and Matt Engelken, and PA1 Ethan Ksiazek are also going to help listener Stephanie with her questions about the MD/PhD life, and what kinds of pre-med jobs will be helpful to prepare her. And Dave delivers a pop quiz on Thanksgiving history. Then we’re going to do what Americans do and fill ourselves with carbs and then wish we hadn’t to celebrate. We Want to Hear From You: How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime or email theshortcoats@gmail.com. It’s always a pleasure to hear from you! You deserve to be happy and healthy. If you’re struggling with racism, harassment, hate, your mental health, or some other crisis, visit http://theshortcoat.com/help, and send additions to the resources there to theshortcoats@gmail.com. We love you. Music provided by Argofox. License: bit.ly/CCAttribution DOCTOR VOX – Heatstroke: youtu.be/j1n1zlxzyRE Catmosphere – Candy-Coloured Sky: youtu.be/AZjYZ8Kjgs8 ; Hexalyte – Wandering Hours: youtu.be/FOAo2zsYnvA;

A cancer surgeon’s stories offer lessons of humility and grace TL;DR * Medicine is filled with both the momentous and the prosaic.  Yet every interaction is a chance to process and understand the impact one person can both have and be subject to.* Dr. Campbell suggests students start journaling their experiences early.  Not only might this lead to a lovely book of essays near the end of a career, but it’s also a great tool to track the fleeting experiences that will much sooner make a great personal statement! In this episode, M2s Nicole Hines, AJ Chowdhury, Sarah Costello and M1 Zach Shepard visit with the author of a new book, A Fullness of Uncertain Significance: Stories of Surgery, Clarity, & Grace.  Dr. Bruce Campbell is also a head and neck cancer surgeon at the Medical College of Wisconsin.  The book is a series of short vignettes from Dr. Campbell’s life in medicine from as far back as his first experiences as a nursing assistant in 1973.  A blend of the momentous and prosaic, they offer the medical learner a glimpse of what a veteran doctor has seen, and the conclusions he’s drawn from his privileged window into the lives of the people he’s met over nearly 50 years. We Want to Hear From You How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you! You deserve to be happy and healthy. If you’re struggling with racism, harassment, hate, your mental health,

More tales from Residency Interviews TL;DR * Puzzled by the interviewer’s question? You can fumble around with the answer, or answer a question that wasn’t asked. * Did the Electronic Residency Application Service screw some applicants (again)? * We get to know this week’s cohosts using interview questions they might actually enjoy answering. This episode is sponsored by Panacea Financial, a division of Primis, Member FDIC. See how they are helping med students and doctors with better banking built just for them at https://panaceafinancial.com/. We’re not going to lie: amid reports that ERAS is glitching yet again, this week’s episode is kind of a bitch fest. If you want to hear about the problems associated with medical education, this is the episode for you. And hey, if you thought that med school was hard simply because there’s a lot of studying, well, this ep will broaden your horizons a bit on that front. To take the curse off all that crankiness, Dave decided to get to know his co-hosts with some questions that he recommends interviewers ask instead of “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” We Want to Hear From You How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you!

Stop gatekeeping yourself TL;DR * A question Dave found on reddit inspired this week’s topic: is there any program or school that is “out of your league?”* Co-hosts recap their recent residency interview experiences.* We practice answering absurd residency interview questions. Today’s episode is sponsored by Panacea Financial, a division of Primis, Member FDIC. Check out their PRN Personal Loans to help cover board exams or application costs, with decisions in as little as 24 hours and great interest rates! As usual, Dave was casting about for something to talk about on the show when he stumbled across a question by reddit user roboticnephrotomy who is worried about an ideal residency program being “out of his league.” M4s Nick Lind and Emma Barr, M1 Zach Shepard, and MD/PhD student Riley Behan explain why this is nonsense. Nick and Emma discuss their first residency interviews, and Dave forces the whole crew to consider some of the more…well, ridiculous interview questions they might run across now or later in life. We Want to Hear From You How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you! You deserve to be happy and healthy. If you’re struggling with racism, harassment, hate, your mental health, or some other crisis, visit http://theshortcoat.com/help, and send additions to the resources there to

Hot sauces rule TL;DR We discuss the many uses (real or potential) of capsaicin as we taste hot sauces from some random multipack co-host AJ had lying around. The co-hosts fight each other with words in a game of Megabattle. Warning: cartoonish violence is described. If you don’t like the thought of being stabbed by flaming antlers, you might want to skip this one. This episode is sponsored by Enso Rings, makers of soft, safe, attractive silicone rings. Listeners get 10% off rings at EnsoRings.com using promo code SHORT! M2s AJ Chowdhury, Smrithi Mani, Alex Belzer and Alex Choi take a break from serious discussion this week because Dave’s busy running a conference to even do his usually-minimal level of prep for the show. Fortunately, AJ had a box of various hot sauces lying around, so we ate them while we discussed facts about capsaicin, the chemical contained by chili peppers responsible for that lovely burning sensation we crave. And, in an attempt to justify to himself that he’s an actual educator, he forces the crew to practice their debate skills by playing Megabattle–who wins in ridiculous battles of cartoon-like violence? They’ll have to convince each other of the winner! We Want to Hear From You: How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime or email theshortcoats@gmail.com. It’s always a pleasure to hear from you! You deserve to be happy and healthy. If you’re struggling with racism, harassment, hate, your mental health, or some other crisis, visit http://theshortcoat.com/help, and send additions to the resources there to theshortcoats@gmail.com. We love you. Music provided by Argofox. License: bit.ly/CCAttribution DOCTOR VOX – Heatstroke: youtu.be/j1n1zlxzyRE Catmosphere – Candy-Coloured Sky: youtu.be/AZjYZ8Kjgs8 ; Hexalyte – Wandering Hours: youtu.be/FOAo2zsYnvA;

Are there parallels between medicine and Squid Game? TL;DR The experience of job hunting for a residency position is unlike any other. It’s way easier to donate bone marrow than many think. Dave stuffs the episode with Squid Game references in the hopes that various algorithms love us. This episode is sponsored by Enso Rings, makers of soft, safe, attractive silicone rings. Listeners get 10% off rings at EnsoRings.com using promo code SHORT! MD/PhD student Aline Sandouk, M1 Noah Wick, and M4s Madeline Cusimano and Abby Fyfe have their souls crushed this week by Dave’s suggestion that the Netflix smash hit Squid Game has some parallels with medicine and medical education. See, Dave read a listicle by Rebecca Richardson in McSweeny’s comparing the features of the game to academic job-hunting, and it seemed a little…familiar. But first, the crew takes a look at recent developments in Madeline’s and Abby’s own job hunt, and we learn about bone marrow donation as that’s also something Madeline’s preparing for. We Want to Hear From You: How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime or email theshortcoats@gmail.com. It’s always a pleasure to hear from you! You deserve to be happy and healthy. If you’re struggling with racism, harassment, hate, your mental health, or some other crisis, visit http://theshortcoat.com/help, and send additions to the resources there to theshortcoats@gmail.com. We love you. Music provided by Argofox. License: bit.ly/CCAttribution DOCTOR VOX – Heatstroke: youtu.be/j1n1zlxzyRE Catmosphere – Candy-Coloured Sky: youtu.be/AZjYZ8Kjgs8 ; Hexalyte – Wandering Hours: youtu.be/FOAo2zsYnvA;

A relatively new partner in medicine, the Physician Assistant has become vital to team-based healthcare TL;DR * The Physician Assistant can do most things an MD can do, aside from prescribing certain kinds drugs, and they don’t usually practice independently.* Iowa’s interesting because PA students train with MD students during their didactics. This close contact means that trust is established early between the two professions. * PAs must amass so many hours of clinical activity before they enter school that they start with MUCH more experience than MDs usually do. Today’s episode is sponsored by Panacea Financial, a division of Primis, Member FDIC. Check out their PRN Personal Loans to help cover board exams or application costs, with decisions in as little as 24 hours and great interest rates! It’s PA Week across this great land, and to celebrate we’ve got physician assistant students on the mic. PA2s Liz Patton and Chris Ball join M2s Rick Gardner and Brianna Wright to talk about their relatively young profession. Why did they choose to pursue a career as a physician assistant? What do PAs actually do, and how is it different from the jobs of other healthcare pros? What’s the training like? Let’s dive in! We Want to Hear From You How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you! You deserve to be happy and healthy. If you’re struggling with racism, harassment, hate, your mental health, or some other crisis, visit http://theshortcoat.com/help, and send additions to the resources there to theshortcoats@gmail.com. We love you.

The Medical Student Performance Evaluation (or dean’s letter) will be sent to all your potential employers. Let’s talk about what’s in it! TL;DR * You may have heard of the dean’s letter. It’s sent to all residency programs, one of the things they’ll use to choose who to invite for an interview. But do you know what’s in it…and that it’s creation begins on your first day of med school?* YouTube announces blanket ban on vaccine misinformation, and axes the biggest misinformation peddlers.* Can The Short Coats pass the 2021 IgNobel Prize Winners Quiz? Today’s episode is sponsored by Panacea Financial, a division of Primis, Member FDIC. Check out their PRN Personal Loans to help cover board exams or application costs, with decisions in as little as 24 hours and great interest rates! To Dave, it sometimes feels like the process of medical education is as complex and opaque as the actual medical knowledge it works to impart to students. In this elaborate system, absolute transparency is difficult to achieve, but there’s one thing Dave thinks students should keep in the backs of their heads from day one: the medical student performance evaluation (MSPE, or ‘dean’s letter’). That’s because this document will be sent to all their future employers, including their residency programs. And those programs will use it (and other data applicants and colleges supply) to decide whether to invite you for an interview. Yet Dave has the impression that many don’t even know what’s in this important document–which includes comments from residents and attendings on their personal qualities and performance–until just before they begin to apply for residency!

Applying to med school together might be easier than couples think TL;DR * Married couples applying to a school together are really a bonus for schools, all other factors being equal.* We discuss Niki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s testicles. Because that’s a thing we do now.* Wiki How has interesting illustrations–can we guess the article? This episode is sponsored by Enso Rings, makers of soft, safe, attractive silicone rings. Listeners get 10% off rings at EnsoRings.com using promo code SHORT! Taylor and his wife are going to apply to Ivy League med school Brown University together. But they’re worried that it’s a lot to expect that schools will accept both of them as a package deal. But we think it might not be as difficult for schools to do as Taylor might assume. MD/PhD student Aline Sandouk, M2 Elvire Nguepnang, M1 Noah Wick, and M4 Mackenzie Walhof–along with our admissions director–have some encouraging thoughts for those looking to start their journey as a couple. Also, we talk about Niki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s testicles, the CDC’s approval of booster shots for Pfizer (and it’s director’s unilateral decision to include frontline workers as eligible), and Dave quizzes the crew to see if they can figure out what the Wiki How article is based on some accompanying illustrations. We Want to Hear From You How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you?

What to look at when shopping for schools to apply to when you aren’t like other students TL;DR * We discuss with a listener how to find a school that is friendly to non-traditional students.* Bringing wooly mammoths back to life?* Is talking about people who engage in questionable COVID treatments just adding to the problem? This episode is sponsored by Enso Rings, makers of soft, safe, attractive silicone rings. Listeners get 10% off rings at EnsoRings.com using promo code SHORT! Dave invited listener Brenna on the show to ask her question–as a decidedly non-traditional applicant to medical schools, how can she go about finding schools that will be open to her application? And what can she expect from those schools socially–will she be so different from her classmates that she isn’t able to find her people? MD/PhD students Aline Sandouk, Miranda Schene, Riley Behan, and M2 Sarah Costello have the answers! We also discuss some special news items this week, like the startup that wants to CRISPr up some woolly mammoth/elephant hybrids to roam the tundra, the hospital that wants to use med students to fill in for their nursing shortage, and the people now (allegedly?) sipping betadine to prevent COVID. We Want to Hear From You How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you! You deserve to be happy and healthy. If you’re struggling with racism, harassment, hate, your mental health, or some other crisis, visit http://theshortcoat.com/help, and send additions to the resources there to

Medical students who play instruments together and with others see benefits for teamwork and learning Today’s episode is sponsored by Panacea Financial, a division of Primis, Member FDIC. Check out their PRN Personal Loans to help cover board exams or application costs, with decisions in as little as 24 hours and great interest rates! TL;DR * Medical students can use their music background to enhance their education* Playing together and improvising is great practice for working in teams* The mental health benefits of playing or singing are huge–it’s impossible to play or sing without forgetting your cares. M2s AJ Chowdhury (bass guitar), Trey Krupp (guitar), Anthony Piscopo (vocals) and M4 Dhruv Kothari (singer-songwriters), discuss their lives as musicians, and the uses that music has for understanding their lives as medical students and team members. Keeping music in their lives despite what feels like the all-consuming nature of medical education. Listen to Trey Krupp on Spotify! We Want to Hear From You How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email theshortcoats@gmail.com.  It’s always a pleasure to hear from you! You deserve to be happy and healthy. If you’re struggling with racism,

Texas thinks it’s finally found the solution to the abortion ‘problem.’ What will it cost them? TL;DR * Now that Texas has conferred on its citizens the responsibility for enforcing it’s ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, what will be the effects?* The University of Iowa community protests alleged sex abuse in Greek life, but the movement is tearing itself apart. * We play a game to distract ourselves from all that stuff. This episode is sponsored in part by Panacea Financial, a division of Primis, member FDIC. Check out what a bank built by doctors for doctors and med students can offer! The big national news this week is Texas’ ban on abortion after six weeks. Such laws in other states have routinely been blocked at the Federal level as unconstitutional. But the Texas law is different–instead of giving its attorney general the responsibility for enforcing the new law (and thus, someone to block from enforcing it), Texas has given the power of enforcement to all citizens of the US, allowing anyone to sue in civil court anyone who aids and abets in an attempt to seek an abortion, for up to $10,000. In other words, there’s no one for the Federal government to sue to block the law. What will be the effects on medical education, especially residency training, in Texas? Also, we discuss our own community’s struggle as a large group accuses a fraternity of creating an environment that encourages sex abuse. But the movement–like many large activist groups–seems to be eating itself as its members debate the methods it should use.

Taking your time may actually be better for your career than rushing through it TL;DR * Rushing to med school may be a good idea, but there is a danger of missing experiences that make you a better student and a better doctor. But if you’re going to do it…go hard.* Nutrition is well covered in the med school curriculum, but there’s a lot we don’t understand.* Falling off a tall stack of milk crates on purpose has questionable health benefits. This episode is sponsored by Enso Rings, makers of soft, safe, attractive silicone rings. Listeners get 10% off rings at EnsoRings.com using promo code SHORT! Listener (and graduating high-school senior) Stephanie called 347-SHORTCT to ask about her plans to finish undergrad in 2 years and start med school at 19. While her actual question was how she could get everything done, our question was what would she miss out on that might inform and educate her about her medicine dreams? MD/PhD students Miranda Schene and Riley Behan, M2 Eric Boeshart, and M1 Zach Shepard discuss the cons. Another listener, Varsha, wants to know how much nutrition is covered in med school; and Dave points out a study that claims a hot dog reduces your life expectancy by 36 minutes. One more thing that reduces life expectancy: the milk crate challenge. We Want to Hear From You How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime  or email 

Is there etiquette on staying in touch with admissions? TL;DR A listener asks about the etiquette of keeping the adcom up to date on their activities. We discuss Dave’s experience in the TSA line with an anti-masker. Dave tries to come up with new business ideas that YOU can use (if you’re brave). This episode is sponsored by Enso Rings, makers of soft, safe, attractive silicone rings. Listeners get 10% off rings at EnsoRings.com using promo code SHORT! reject photo Listener Krazenwaz (not her real name) called 347-SHORTCT to ask if there is any etiquette surrounding staying in touch with admissions when they’ve asked you to. MD/PhD student Miranda Schene, M2s Nicole Hines and Rick Gardner, and M4 Emma Barr help Dave answer the question of how not to bother your adcom with your meaningless life (hint: don’t overthink it.) Also, Dave discovers “farm brewed beer” after encountering an anti-masker in the TSA line, which leads him to think about other products that his imagination won’t let him make a million dollars on. We Want to Hear From You How’d we do on this week’s show? Did we miss anything in our conversation? Did we anger you? Did we make you smile? Call us at 347-SHORTCT anytime or email theshortcoats@gmail.com. It’s always a pleasure to hear from you! You deserve to be happy and healthy. If you’re struggling with racism, harassment, hate, your mental health, or some other crisis, visit http://theshortcoat.com/help, and send additions to the resources there to theshortcoats@gmail.com. We love you. Music provided by Argofox. License: bit.ly/CCAttribution DOCTOR VOX – Heatstroke: youtu.be/j1n1zlxzyRE Catmosphere – Candy-Coloured Sky: youtu.be/AZjYZ8Kjgs8 ; Hexalyte – Wandering Hours: youtu.be/FOAo2zsYnvA