What Brings You In Today?

This  episode continues our conversation with the creator of @Memeology. MD, a popular medical meme page on Instagram, about the world of medical memeing. To see first hand how medical memes are made, we challenged @Memeology.MD to create memes with us on the spot using two surprise images. Check out @wbyit_uwsmph and @Memeology.MD on Instagram to see the memes we came up with!Featured music: “Music Elevator Ext” by Jay_You on FreeSound.org, licensed under CC BY 3.0 (https://freesound.org/people/Jay_You/sounds/467240/)

From #MedTwitter to Instagram, social media has helped create new ways for medical professionals to share their ideas and stories about studying and working in medicine. Medical memes are one such modem for personal and professional expression. Like all memes, memes about medicine and the medical field are meant to be fun and funny, but they also communicate larger truths about our field. In this episode, we talk with the creator of @memeology.md, a popular meme page on Instagram, about how and why medical students use memes.  

In honor of the new year, we asked four UWSMPH medical students to write about their 2020 and hopes for 2021—and they delivered. Our last episode featured an M1 and an M4 at the very beginning and end of their time in medical school. In part 2 of our 'New Year' series, we talk with an M2 and M3 for whom the new year brings added significance of marking the transition to new phases of medical school.  Anqi Gao (M2) shares a piece she wrote about the paradoxes of preclinical training just days after her last preclinical exam, and Shruti Rajan (M3) reflects on re-discovering what bought her to medicine after a year of core clinical rotations. From all of us at WBYIT, we wish you a happy and fulfilling 2021! 

2021: oh, how we have been waiting for you! The new year is time for reflection and anticipation, so we asked four medical students from UWSMPH—each in a different year of training—to write about their year, their journey through medical school, and their hopes for 2021.  In part 1 of our ‘New Year’ series, Leah Gruen, a first year student, and Jose Carrillo, a fourth year student, look back at their time in medical school and forward to a new year.  Stay tuned for part 2 with a second and third year student on 1/27/2021! 

Stories are powerful. They help us connect, energize, and heal. As a Clinical Social Worker at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center trained in Dignity Therapy, Jean Ligocki uses the power of storytelling as medicine for patients with terminal illness. In this episode, Jean shares some amazing encounters she has had with patients and their families undergoing Dignity Therapy  as part of end-of-life care. 

We use a lot of euphemisms to talk about dying: "we are at the end" or "there is nothing more we can do." Maybe because talking about death—and even the word itself—often feels taboo. But for Palliative Care physicians, frank conversations about dying help provide people the end to their story they want and deserve. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Liana Eskola, a Palliative Care physician and Director of the UW Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Narrative Medicine Program, about how she approaches end of life discussions and the role of narrative medicine in Palliative Care. 

In medical school, we learn about the science of death. We learn about the electrochemical changes in heart cells as EKG waves transition to asystole and the physiology of a failed apnea test in the setting of brain death. But being there in someone’s final moments is something else entirely—something no one teaches us about. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Shoshana Rudin, UWSMPH alumnus and current Emergency Medicine Resident at the University of Michigan, about her first few experiences with death as a medical student. 

Compared to other high income countries, the United States pays far more for its healthcare only to suffer worse health outcomes. For health policy experts like Dr. Richard Roberts, working to improve our fragmented healthcare system is a career-long job. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Roberts, a Family Medicine physician and lawyer, about the trials and triumphs of his career in health policy and his vision for the future of the U.S. healthcare system.

Working in the United States healthcare system, we've all seen patients forced to choose between medical care and financial ruin. What toll does the fragmentation and exclusivity of our current healthcare system take on patients? What toll does it take on us? From Obamacare to Bidencare to Medicare For All, how should medical students and physicians begin to think about the future of healthcare reform? Day 1 s/p the 2020 presidential election, we talk with Simon Yadgir, a second year medical student at UWSMPH, about his piece "The U.S. Healthcare System: Designed to Make People Rich, Not  Make People Healthy."

Institutional problems like racism in medicine demand swift and decisive institutional efforts aimed at making our educational and patient care systems work for everyone, not just the privileged few. To find out about our medical school's new and ongoing antiracism efforts, we talked with Dr. Tracy Downs, Urologist and UWSMPH Associate Dean for Diversity and Multicultural Affairs.