Episode 22: The Anniversary Issue!

So. A year. Amazing. Both in how long it seems, and how it seems like just last weekend I sat down and wondered "what's this podcast thing all about."

I'd thought about a greatest hits episode, but in the end, with questions from the listeners waiting (very patiently) for answers, I went for new content. Hopefully that will be the theme of Year 2.

The poem I read, Miniver Cheevey, can be found all over the Internet, but here's one place.

My Facebook account, discussed on the show, is "Dashing Docteur." Hope to see you there.

Here is the episode.

And the kittens, well, here are the kittens:

The radio interview

Hi All,

Had a great evening interview with Dr. Anonymous tonight...a good conversation that I hope you'll all listen to. It's linked here.

Also, I was contacted by a guy named Nathosh Relhaak, who's a listener of the podcast and just started a blog of his poetry, inspired, he says, by the Dashing MD podcast. There was only one poem up on his site when I last checked, but I liked it a lot...it reminded me a lot of my last birthday. I linked his blog on the right, or click here.

Enjoy!

D, M.D.

Subscribing to the Feed

I've not provided a button for easy subscribing in a while, I realized. Consider that problem resolved:



Shazam.

For all of you who are listening to the podcast, I'd love it if you would leave a rating and comments on whatever service you use to get the podcast, be that iTunes, PodCastAlley, Yahoo, Google...whatever. As you know, I keep this anonymous, which means I can't do a lot of self-promotion. So if you like the podcast, please let others know about it. And if you have thoughts about how it could be better, post them, or let me know! Thanks!

Also, I've just realized that this is the anniversary month for the podcast...how time flies! My next post will be an anniversary issue, I think, so if you have favorite episodes, I'd love to hear what they are (ERDiaries seems to be the most downloaded, along with Episode 8...why is that?)

Episode 21: Rites of Passage

Hi All,

First, some pressing news: I'm going to be on the Doctor Anonymous radio show tomorrow, Sunday the 21st, at 9 PM Eastern. Hope you can join us there...I'm excited about having a chance to interact with the Listenership in real time. The show link is here, and the Doctor Anonymous blog, which is much more prolific than my own, is linked on the right.

Episode 21 tells the story of some recent rites of passage: my completion of the trilogy of board exams (the USMLE Step exams), my trip to the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress in New Orleans, and a walk down memory lane in my first home town. Enjoy!

Episode 20: The End of Summer

So...summer was great. So great that I didn't really get to the podcast much. That, and some technical difficulties. But I'm back now, with some great listener mail. Episode 20 hits some big topics:

- Medical school for non-traditional students

- Universal healthcare, and my feelings about it

- Coping with bad days

Hope you enjoy! I'm glad to be back.

Keep your thoughts and questions coming!

Episode 19: Sharing lessons

I'm back, at long last. Now coming to you from the East Coast of America, and living a very different life. There are plenty of stories still to come, but there's still plenty to say about the life I've left behind, too. So I give you the transplant service.

Moving on...

Hi Everyone,

It's moving day...when I next broadcast, it will be from the East Coast of America. Sorry I haven't got an episode to share with you right now, but if residency is busy, residency and moving is doubly so. My transplant rotation was all that I'd hoped it would be, story-wise, so when I'm settled again in a week or two I'll have some tales to tell. And there's been some good mail, too!

Thanks for your patience. Be well.

D, M.D.

Episode 18: Can work be its own reward?

The rewards of medicine are sort of obvious: taking care of other people is one of the great privileges of life, and the fact that we get paid at all to do it sometimes seems like an unexpected, unnecessary pleasure. But the fact is that medicine asks more from us than simple patient care, and making that worthwhile is another question all together. As it is, there's no incentive to do anything more than just get by in medical residency, for instance...no matter how hard you work, you spend the same amount of time training, and get the same pay. The impact of this - a complete deviation, after all, from the American Dream - is underappreciated. I try to appreciate it a little bit this week.

The article I mention in the podcast, about how one hospital is trying incentive programs for surgeons, is here.

Haven't subscribed yet? No time like the present:

Next episode en route...

Hi All,

Look for a new episode on Monday...spare time's been hard to come by lately.


- D, M.D.

Medicine and Literature

In advance of my next podcast (probably this weekend), this is a nice story in the New York Times about why doctors want to tell stories, and about some of the ones who do so better than most. Enjoy!