MD Program

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 through of being stabbed by flaming antlers, you might want to skip this one.

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.

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.

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. And, can The Short Coats pass the 2021 IgNobel Prize Winners Quiz?

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. And Wiki How has interesting illustrations--can we guess the article?

We talk with a listener about how she can find a school that is friendly to non-traditional students. Should we bringing wooly mammoths back to life? Is talking about people who engage in questionable COVID treatments just adding to the problem?