MD Program

Miriam Murray and Keenan Laraway bring us tales from their residency interview trail, including Keenan’s real-life “is there a doctor in the house” moment during his flight from Washington to Chicago, with a guest appearance by John Boehner. Also with us are Corbin Weaver and Miriam’s brother Aaron, a simulated patient here at the CCOM who describes Dave Etler as “a genius.” Dave will likely invite him to be on the show again. This week’s news includes the story of a 17-year-old being compelled by the State of Connecticut to get chemotherapy for Hodgkins.

In this episode from way back, Natalie Ramirez, Zhi Xiong, and Mgbechi Erondu got to hang out with a real Pulitzer winner (!) and a nice man, David Oshinsky, PhD. He is the author of Polio: An American Story. From the papers of Jonas Salk, Albert Sabin, and other key players, Dr. Oshinsky records the U.S. public health crisis of polio and the search for a cure in the early 1950s, a frightening time for all Americans.

Your Hosts This Week:

[huge_it_gallery id=”11″]

It’s the last show we’ll record this semester, and to mark it we’ll consider what went well for our hosts in their studies, what didn’t go so well, who helped them not go crazy, and what they’ll be doing differently in the coming year.  Also, some very important news about how long it takes all animals to urinate.  

Merry Christmas, if that’s your thing. This week, Aline Sandouk, Lisa Wehr, Greg Woods, and Kaci McCleary ponder the prevalence of psychological issues among doctors. It turns out, they’re messed up, especially surgeons. Keep away from those guys, unless you need a transplant.

The U.S. has recently (and not-so-recently) been rocked by the killings of black men by police; these events have spawned protests, among them the die-ins at medical schools around the country.  Students Ben Quarshie, Kaci McCleary, Lisa Wehr, Greg Woods, and Aline Sandouk discuss these events, how non-minorities can take part in the conversation without screwing it up, and why these events are important to medical students.

This time, Greg Woods, Aline Sandouk, Ethan Craig, Kaci McCleary, and Cole Cheney talk about the medical student humblebrag, as well as the score-comparison conversations that happen after exams, this despite the common reassurance from administrators and professors that these scores aren’t the most important thing about one’s medical school experience.  Also, guys, is smoking deleting your Y chromosome? Might want to think about that, too.  Why are internal medicine and ER docs not giving patients with anaphylactic shock epinephrine?  Flu vaccine rates are abysmal.

Dr. Denny and nurse Paula Lofstrum are a pair of true medical missionaries who have spent many years traveling the world from Antarctica to Guatemala to Tanzania.  Their journey together began in the late 1980s, when they embarked on a mission to Guatemala with a team of healthcare professionals.  It was the first of several trips to Guatemala until, in the early 2000s, they were asked by a colleague to visit Iambi Tanzania in East Africa.

Happy Thanksgiving! Have a heaping slice of Greg Woods, Lisa Wehr, Cole Cheney, and Corbin Weaver who cover the attention Mattel’s Barbie is getting for being a shockingly bad computer engineer, and whether and how this sort of bias against the competence of women appears in medical education. Also, kissing and hand dryers are really gross. Medical school pranks (hint: if your E. coli swab isn’t growing, you might want to look at your lab partners).

This week, Dave begs listeners for reviews at Stitcher and iTunes, because he craves validation.  And a listener tip (thanks, Twitter’s @Brady_Campbell) led Cole Cheney, Keenan Laraway, Matt Maves and Greg Woods to a discussion of one doctor’s campaign to get her colleagues to embrace total transparency–financial relationships with drug companies, personal values, the works.  Could it lead to more trusting doctor-patient relationship, or is it completely unworkable?

Corbin Weaver, Kaci McCleary, Lisa Wehr, Greg Woods, Ben Quarshie and Cole Cheney were all available for podcasting this week, so I match them with their celebrity look-alikes. Also, we announce an internship for Iowa pre-meds, something we’re very excited about. We talk about Brittany Maynard’s decision to move to Oregon so that she could be in a position to end her suffering from glioblastoma by taking advantage of Oregon’s Death with Dignity law. New crash test dummies have been made to account for Americans’ expanding waistlines.