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

Latest Episodes:

Med Schools Hate When Students Have Jobs. Some People Take the Risk Anyway. Mar 17, 2022

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Perhaps no school would recommend working during med school, but plenty of people do it. TL;DR * Sometimes, you just don’t want to take that extra loan money. One option: a part time job. * But that is risky–the time you devote to that job could have been spent on studying, and perhaps could decrease your chances at those competitive residency programs. * But there are medical students who make the choice to work, and some jobs might even help your chances. Eliza wrote to us at theshortcoats@gmail.com because, as an older, married medical student with a young child in an expensive city, she wondered what our thoughts were on students who work during medical school. We invited her on the show so M3 Nathen Spitz, M4s Abby Fyfe and Nick Lind, and M1 Grant Stalker could find out more about her choice to work as a therapeutic yoga teacher, and discuss some of the equity issues surrounding work during medical school. And Nathen offers some ideas about paying jobs that can actually be a benefit to medical students in their academic lives. We also discuss the Biden administration’s new mental health-focused initiatives, especially those focused on healthcare workers, as outlined in the president’s state of the union address. 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! We do more things on… Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theshortcoat YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheShortCoat 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;

Rushing to Med School means Missed Opportunities (RECESS REHASH) Mar 10, 2022

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The gods of podcasting smote our recording session last week, but at least we can enjoy this rerun. Luckily, it’s a good one! 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. 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 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;

Sociaizing and Studying: How do Med Students Do It? Mar 03, 2022

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Med students are usually intentional about everything, even the balance between social and school TL;DR The M4s are picking their favorite residency programs in the hopes that they love the next phase of their training. We discuss the factors they’re weighing now that interviews are done. A listener about to start med school wants to know how students study, and how they also have social lives when studying is so intense. Listener Sunrise Warghost called the Short Coat Listener Line (347-SHORTCT) because she’ll start school in the fall, and is wondering about the study techniques and mental habits medical students use to crush it in medical school. M4s Emma Bar, NIck Lind, and Madeline Cusimano, and M3 Nathen Spitz help with the tips and tricks they’ve discovered. And they also offer their methods for maintaining a social life as well, both within and outside the cloistered world of medical school. But first, a discussion from the M4s on the factors they’re weighing as they nail down which residency programs they would like to train at next year, because like everything else in their lives, intentionality is key. 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! We do more things on… Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theshortcoat YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheShortCoat 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;

The Trainees Who Don’t Fit the Med Ed Mission Feb 24, 2022

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Should medical education make a larger space for trainees who don’t want to see patients? TL;DR * Medical schools’ mission is to create doctors that treat patients. In that context, the options provided for trainees who don’t see that as their own mission may be limited. * However, those options do exist–should schools acknowledge them? Should schools even promote those options to their students? * Listener Nicole asks what prerequisites she can take at a community college, if any. Even during medical school, Alison Yarp, MD, felt as though her personal career goals didn’t reflect those of the school she intended–she did not want to see patients and practice individual medicine! But she was in med school already. She wanted to be in medicine, but given how much blood, sweat, and tears she’d already spent on that, how could she change directions? What would she even change directions toward? Eventually, she settled on psychiatry…and hoped it would be right for her. Following her intern year, Dr. Yarp resigned from her psychiatry residency and seek a new path. It was then that she decided to build MARCo Community, a private and exclusive social network for trainees of any level who don’t feel like they fit with the typical medical education narrative. Dr. Yarp got lucky this past year. She found a new specialty that fit her goals nicely, and sought a new match in a residency she hadn’t been aware of during medical school–preventive medicine. M1s Matt Engelken, Tracy Chen, Grant Stalker, and Alec Hanson talked with her about the difficulties of finding a career in medicine when the path fully acknowledged by medical education is narrower than what actually exists. Also, can Listener Nicole do any of her prerequisites for medical school at a community college? 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! We do more things on… Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theshortcoat YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheShortCoat 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;

Low MCAT Ruins Listener’s Med School Plans. Or Does It? Feb 17, 2022

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Med schools denied this listener’s application, so he worries his low-and-not-improving MCAT will mean he’ll have to settle for a non-research career TL;DR “Cuddles” worries that he can’t be a research MD if he doesn’t get into an allopathic med school due to his low MCAT. But is that really the problem? Can osteopaths be academic (research) physicians? Dave gives his co-hosts a pop quiz on old time remedies after learning chimps may be practicing folk medicine. Listener “Cuddles” seems to be panicking after he didn’t get in to any of the medical schools he applied to. He’s worried that if he can’t get in to an MD school attached to an academic health center he won’t be able to fulfill his dream of doing medical research. He fears he might have to “settle” for a DO school to get in anywhere with his low MCAT score. M1s Matt Engelken, Noah Wick, Mallory Kallish, and M4 Nick Lind try to talk Cuddles down from his panicky state. Dave also wants to take these fancy physicians down a peg after reading in the New York Times that chimps have been found practicing folk medicine. Who’s to say that they won’t develop vaccines and MRI machines in the future, and topple doctors from their lofty place atop the medical heap? So Dave makes them take a pop quiz on folk medicine. 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! We do more things on… Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theshortcoat YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheShortCoat 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;

Pre-med Advisors Don’t Know Everything: Recovering after Dismissal Feb 10, 2022

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Listener Valerie's pre-med advisor still haunts her years later, despite a stellar recovery from academic disaster. We got hammered by anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers on our Instagram. Will our response get the same result? The co-hosts and Dave celebrate the upcoming Valentines Day observance--can we guess what our SOs and parents think of us, Newlywed Game style?

MUSICIANS TAKE A STAND ON SPOTIFY/ROGAN. WILL that FIGHT HEALTH MISINFO? Feb 03, 2022

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Standing up against health misinformation is great, but will it help people understand? TL;DR * Folk rock god Neil Young and others have removed their music from Spotify, which hosts Joe Rogan’s controversial podcast over his COVID and vaccine discussions with deniers. * Does that actually accomplish anything, or is it too late to win over the hesitant? * We play Kiss, Marry, Kill: Medical Specialties Edition. Some very famous musicians have told their labels to pull their catalogs from Spotify over it’s hosting of Joe Rogan’s podcast, which often includes discussions with vaccine and COVID deniers. This has renewed the discussion over Internet media’s role in shaping public discourse on important life-and-death topics. But M2 Eric Boeshart, M1 Mallory Kallish, M3 Ananya Munjal, and MD/PhD student Riley Behan-Bush aren’t convinced that it’ll persuade many to adopt a more expert-influenced approach to their health. (Note: we discussed this prior to Rogan’s response, in which he promised to include more experts on his show). The crew also plays a game of Kiss, Marry, Kill: Medical Specialties edition. 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! We do more things on… Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theshortcoat YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheShortCoat 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;

Why Med Learners are Asked to “Reflect,” And What Does It Even Mean? Jan 27, 2022

Show notes

Whether it’s a class assignment, a personal statement, or a scholarship essay, students are often commanded to reflect on their experiences. Reflection is can be a useful part of understanding what you are becoming. But what that means and how to do it are frequently not well defined. Our M4 co-hosts discuss whether their fears about the residency application process were well-founded or just wheel spinning.

The Question All Future Applicants should Ask: “What Will Help Me Grow?” Jan 20, 2022

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Listener Riley wants some suggestions on experiences that will help him grow while he pursues his path to medicine. We discuss some comments from YouTube on female urologists and male patients. That leads to a discussion on why hospitals default to environments for their adult patients which are downright icky.

Overcoming Your Undergrad Apathy Now that You’re Applying to Medical School Jan 13, 2022

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If your undergraduate studies in a different field lacked a certain enthusiasm but you’ve now decided to pursue medicine, it can be difficult to know where you’ll stand with admissions committees. Fortunately, adcomms don’t just look for perfect grades and unwavering and early certainty from med school candidates on their path to medicine. We discuss a great way to fill a hole in what your school teaches–create a course on the subject!