MappedCon presented by Blueprint Test Prep 2024 is this Friday, October 26, 925 Eastern. I'm starting the day in my track, the pre-med track, planting the seed of your personal statement. We have three tracks going all day long and a couple hours of amazing exhibitors where you can learn more about their programs. Again, MappedCon presented by Blueprint Test Prep, October 26, register for free. It's a virtual event and all the sessions will be up after. So even if you can't make it live, go register and get access to the sessions. Go to MappedCon.com right now, register. That's M-A-P-P-D-C-O-N.com. If you're applying to medical school in 2022 to start medical school in 2023, join me Wednesday or Thursday, Wednesday night at 9.30 p.m. Eastern or Thursday at 11 a.m. Eastern at premedworkshop.com. Go register today. I'm going to show you how to tell your story in your application. Again, that's premedworkshop.com. If you are applying to medical school in 2022, be there or be square. The medical school HQ podcast, session number 64. Hey, this is Z-Dog MD, rapper, physician, legendary turntable health revolutionary and part-time gardener. And you're listening to the medical school HQ podcast hosted by the irredeemably awesome Ryan Gray. Hello and welcome back to the medical school HQ podcast. Now whether your journey is just starting or you're a medical student discouraged on your path, we're here to help encourage, motivate and enlighten you about why you're choosing to join one of the best professions in the whole entire world. We're here to guide you on your path to becoming a physician. Hello, folks. As always, my name is Ryan Gray. And if this is the first time you're listening, let me tell you who I am. I'm a physician and so is my wife who is not with us today. Allison, she joins us for many shows. But today I have an interview for you. And in today's interview, I am interviewing Ginger Campbell. She is another physician and host of the brain science podcast. Yes, another doctor podcaster. There are many out there. And I reached out to Ginger because number one, her podcast is awesome. And I think you should be listening to it. Even if you're not interested in the brain, it's just a great podcast for physicians to listen to or up and coming physicians. But I wanted to talk to her about her path into medicine and what her draws were and an advice for new doctors coming up. She currently is an ER doctor in Alabama besides being a podcaster. So I hope you get a lot of great information out of today's podcast. To begin, we talked about where she grew up and her initial path into school. And when she decided to become a doctor. Okay, well, I was born in Seattle, Washington, because my dad worked for Boeing. So we moved around a lot, but we ended up in Huntsville, Alabama at the very beginnings of the space program, because that's where Von Braun was. And that's really the reason why I ended up going into engineering to start out with was because I grew up with a lot. All my friends' fathers were engineers, and the University of Alabama in Huntsville was very engineering oriented since that was its origins. In fact, when I first started college, there were still these huge computers in the halls that were left over from the Apollo project. Wow. That probably did basic arithmetic. Those big old computers back in the day with punch cards. Yeah. And they also had these things that were called analog computers, which basically what they did was you plug these wires together for things like capacitors and all that simulated the equations. And then when you ran it, it would run a plot of like say where the rocket was going to go, whether it was going to crash or go where it was supposed to. Actually, one of my favorite classes I ever took in engineering school was analog computing, something which was right on the verge of becoming obsolete. So yeah, there's a really great book out called Digital Apollo, which was written by a historian at MIT about some of that transition to the computer interaction between the astronauts and the computers and all. And if any of your listeners are into engineering, which is really a great background, I think, for going into medicine. Yeah, I was able to, being in the Air Force, I was able to tour down in Houston, the NASA base center down there and got a kind of a behind the scenes tour of the original Apollo mission control center. And they talked about the computers on that Apollo mission and the amount of data that those computers held, and it was less than a typical email nowadays. Yeah. And it's crazy to think that they were able to get up to space and back with so little data on a computer. Yeah, fortunately, Newton was all they really needed at that point. They didn't need to run quantum mechanics equations. Yeah. So you went to school to be an engineer? Yes. How did becoming a physician come into play? Well, I met my husband when I was an undergraduate, and he was working on his PhD in electrical engineering. And we ended up moving to Birmingham, which is where the University of Alabama Medical School is. We moved there because he went there to teach at UAB. And during my senior year of college, I was exposed to a physiology class. It was actually a very easy nursing level class, but it just kind of got me interested in medicine. And I thought really that I wanted to go into research. So I ended up doing a master's in biomedical engineering while I was finishing my pre-med or doing my pre-med since I didn't have any of it. And so really, that's kind of how it happened was just being in the right place. So a physiology course sucked in. Yep. Okay. And so you did your master's to kind of do what we would now call a post-back to get your pre-med requirements in and apply to medical school. And obviously got into medical school and you went, where did you go to medical school? University of Alabama School of Medicine, which I think now calls itself the UAB School of Medicine because it's a political thing. But yeah, and I got in on something called early decision, which is that, you know, one of the system where I think they still have this where if you will make a commitment to one particular school and you have high enough MCATs and high enough grade point average and everything, then you get to find out, you know, like in the fall instead of the spring, whether you got in, which is, you know, reduces stress considerably. And since I knew I wasn't going to go anywhere else since I was already married and living in a town that had a very good medical school. So that made that process a little less stressful for me. Yeah. Early decision is still around. And I don't want to date you, but you just mentioned stress and applying to medical school. Now you went to medical school back in 1980. Yes. What was it like back then to apply to and be a pre-med student back in the late 70s? Was it, I don't know how close you are to pre-medical students now, but was it back then as competitive and kind of cutthroat as it is now, do you think? I think that it was probably fairly similar is my impression. I think the biggest difference is that back then, grade point averages weren't so inflated. So if you had a good grade point average, you didn't have to make up a bunch of other qualifications to get the attention of the medical school. But you know, now that you can have a grade point average better than perfect, if you do a bunch of stuff, it makes it really hard for the medical schools to judge by things like grade point average anymore. So then they need more extracurricular. I think it's the same stuff that goes on for college now is my understanding is the inflation of grade point averages was really made some of that other stuff more important than it was. And also people didn't study for things like they didn't study for their SATs and things like that back then. So you got your score and it was what it was. And so there wasn't this competition to have like the super high scores on things. I think that's the part that's the most difference. The thing that was really going on at the time that I went into medical school was there had been a court case called the Bakke case that spelled B-A-K-K-E that had to do with age discrimination that had been settled in favor of a middle-aged guy who wanted to go to medical school. So at that point in time they were opening slots to people who were older. And so then there was a different group of people that were going in that weren't pre-meds at all that were like my closest friend was someone who actually when we started was like 10 years older than me. She'd already been out. And so that combined with the effects of Title 9 which a lot of people don't realize was really about women getting into professional schools. It wasn't about women getting into sports. It's really sports was a side effect. So those two factors were going on. So like in my class there were 160 people and a third of the maybe 35 people, that's wrong. About a third of the class was women which to me at the time seemed like a lot because I'd gone to engineering school and there'd been three other women. So things were different back then in those extensions. Like we didn't as women we didn't have very many role models ahead of us. I can only remember one or two women attendings and of course that's not the way it is now. And I remember when I was on OB there was the chief resident was a woman. It sticks out in my mind so strongly because listening to the residents accuse her of being a bitch just because she was acting like a chief resident. You know really really pissed me off. But then that really hasn't changed as I can tell. Interesting. It's interesting. The more I talk to women it sounds like some of the biggest pushback along the education their training is from other women. They get more flack about having babies from other women. So it's kind of interesting. I wonder back then being kind of the whole change with title nine and everything would have been like to maybe you knew some people had babies during medical school or during residency if there was a huge pushback. You know in my class no one did but my sister was like four years behind me and she ended up having two kids while she was a resident. One I think near the end of her internship and one later on and she never said anything about any women in particular giving her a hard time. But I know there was one girl in my class who was pregnant when we were interviewing for residency and she made it a point of not telling and there's a reason why that's not an allowable question. They're not allowed to ask you that. Yeah. Okay. But I never have had any kids so I'm less attuned to that particular issue than I probably might be otherwise. Okay. So you were one of about a third of a class as a female during medical school. For you what was the hardest part of medical school? Memorization. I was an engineering student so I was used to the idea if you don't remember it you just derive it. And I almost flunked gross anatomy to be perfectly honest because they didn't ask anything about what was important. It was a trivia contest. And the last time I'd memorized anything was like in the fifth grade. So that was hard. And once we got to things like physiology where you could actually use thinking I did a lot better. But yeah, I mean you discover that you can learn a lot more stuff in a lot shorter period than you ever thought you could. I think that's really the big value of medical school is teaching you that you can do more than you think you can. And we could go off on a huge tangent about why I think a lot of these medical hour restrictions are kind of hurting us in that sense because I think that's a lot of the stress that residency puts you through is to show you that you can do it. And now we're kind of reducing a lot of that stress. And it's not very good preparation for the real world where your patients are going to expect you to be there for them. Yeah, my wife is realizing that now, Allison's realizing that now having just finished her residency with work hour restrictions. And now is in attending with no work hour restrictions. And so she's busting herself. She's actually on call this week at the hospital. And it's kind of 24/7. You can get paid anytime for a whole week. So it's very interesting that we kind of baby people through the whole process and then kick them out and go, okay, sink or swim. Yeah. Okay, so memorizing it. And that for me was also, I hate just rope memorization. And pharmacology was the hardest for me because that's what it was. I loved anatomy because it was kind of three dimensional and I could picture things. And that's just how my mind works. But ask me a drug and memorize it and the generic and the brand name and all that other stuff. That was hard. Yeah. And I had a pre-med advisor who, you know, somebody at the medical school who told me not to take any classes that were like what I would have in medical school. So not to take anatomy, not to take any biochemistry. That was just bad advice. Yeah, I agree. Because, you know, you need exposure to this stuff more than once and having to just jump into it totally cold with no background. That was the worst advice I was ever given. And if someone gives you that advice, I think it's probably still bad advice. I would agree. Okay. So you obviously survived medical school. And thankfully, the courses started kind of catering to your learning style. Did you go straight into residency? Well, I went straight into my internship. Okay. And I don't really know how the residencies are labeled these days, but when I went, there was a thing called a transitional year. And so most of the people who did the transitional year were people that were going to go into anesthesiology or ophthalmology, especially like that. Still the same. Okay. So I did that. And actually, when I was a student at first thought, well, I was one of those people who changed my mind about what especially I wanted every six months. But by my senior year, I really thought I wanted to be a surgeon. I went and did a rotation at shock trauma in Baltimore, which was the first trauma center in the country. And that pretty much cured me of wanting to be a surgeon decided I'd rather be a person. And this was, of course, when every other night call was considered normal. Yeah. And so that put me where I'd already done all this interviewing for surgery and had a sort of grapple at the last minute with what to do. So I actually went into the transitional internship at a small community hospital that had actually been a big teaching hospital in the 60s, but it was kind of on its downward spiral being on the wrong side of town sort of scenario. And so I was able to get a spot there, you know, kind of on the last minute. But it was great because it was bread and butter medicine, you know, things like congestive heart failure and strokes and just basic, basic medicine. And because it was a small place we worked during the day, one-on-one with the attendings, which is unheard of for residents to do, you know, in a big academic center. And then at night, we would have residents from UAB that would come, usually actually fellows that would come and be with us at night over us. So it turned out to be a really good experience. And the call schedule was not so bad as the other places as we talked about. This was before our restrictions. So you didn't have that many really bad nights and you could actually plan some life around your internship, believe it or not. Wow. And that worked well for me because I was really into competitive softball at the time. But I had already, even before I graduated from medical school, lined up a non-clinical job teaching biomedical engineering at the school where I had gotten my master's degree. So basically what I did was when I finished my internship and got my license and everything, that's when I temporarily left medicine and went and taught biomedical engineering for about three and a half years. But it was actually a cover for my softball career. That's what I always tell people. Why is that? Well, because, you know, you don't get paid to play softball. So by having this academic job, I had time to play softball. But it didn't take me long. You're so burned out at the end of medical school. I hope you remember. I do. And so the decisions I made at the end of medical school, by the time I'd even by the time I finished my internship, I realized that I liked taking care of patients better than I had ever imagined. I just hated the academic medical center atmosphere, just hated it. I mean, you'd always like, if you weren't someplace and something happened, the resident would say, if you'd been here, we would have let you do blah, blah, blah, that you knew perfectly well. If you'd been there, they wouldn't have let you do. But they were trying to make you feel guilty because you weren't there. This constant guilting you about where you were, what you should have done, you know, just anyway, I just hated it. But once I got out into the community and was just taking care of regular people, like I said, bread and butter medicine, I liked that just fine. In fact, I was surprised to discover that I really enjoyed patient care. So I started thinking about going back into residency pretty soon after I took my academic position. I mean, things like that don't happen instantly. And I really wanted to go into orthopedics because I just, I'm having been in my biomedical engineering. And for various reasons, I really thought that I would like orthopedics. And ironically, I had the person who was the head of the orthopedics department was also my personal physician, because I had congenital hip dysplasia. And at one point, I was, you know, talking to him about how to get into the residency program. And then it turned out that I had to have a hip replacement. And he was not going to say to me, you know, I don't think it's a good idea for you to go into orthopedics with a hip replacement. But I could tell when I decided for myself it was probably not a good idea, just because the issues of spending so much time on your feet, I could tell he was relieved. He was the kind of doctor who was not a person of many words, but he was a great, great, wonderful, wonderful physician. Unfortunately, he died. And pancreatic cancer, like six months after he retired, which is really sad. But I consider him one of the two or three real role models that I knew as a medical student. I thought about, you know, doing ophthalmology since they operate sitting down. But since I can't spell ophthalmology, that was sort of a problem. I always spell that wrong. I actually got a interview. And, you know, it's really hard to get an ophthalmology interview. So, and I don't know how it is at other places, but at UAB, it's kind of like an inquisition. The whole faculty is there and you're standing there. And the first thing that the department chairman said to me was, well, you misspelled ophthalmology on your application, which totally, you know, befuddled me and sort of made my interview and disaster. But so anyway, I ended up going and doing family practice. Really wanted to do emergency medicine, but we didn't have a residency in that at the time. So I did end up doing my residency in family medicine. And near the end of my training, I did a pediatric rotation with a family practitioner who recruited me to go into practice with him, even though I was planning to go into the ER. And so I actually went back to the same little hospital where I did my internship. He recruited me to go into private practice with him and then managed to have a heart attack at the end of the very first month that we were together. So, which made me the entire department of family medicine at this little hospital that had mostly internals. But fortunately for me, I'm very good at setting limits and saying no. So I basically just said, you know, I'll admit anybody that I've seen, but if they come through the ER and I've never seen them, they're going into the unassigned pool because I would have been killed otherwise. And then when he came back, he just wasn't himself and he ended up having to take disability. So I lasted about a year and ended up in the ER just like I had originally planned. Okay. And that's what you're doing now, correct? Yep. I've been doing it pretty much since '92, although I did have one year 2002 to 2003 that I tried private practice again. My husband jokes, we would have gone broke if I'd stayed in private practice, but probably not a joke. Yeah, but not really. I don't know how anyone does it. And the expectations on the poor people in private practice, I mean, it's just hopeless. I mean, it's crazy that in the ER, patients regularly say to me and I realized I work in a small emergency room. So I actually have time to talk to my patients. That's one reason why I work in a small emergency room. They'll say, you spent more time with me than my doctor, not at the place I'm working now, but at a lot of other places, this is true. That's a sad commentary. If you're spending more time talking to the patient in the ER than their doctor can in their office, and I know it's not the doctor's fault. Yeah, it's just too many pressures. So before I want to talk about your podcast, and what you're doing there, I want to get some what you would give as advice to beginning students on their journey into medicine. What would you tell a premed student or a beginning medical student now to how to stay sane during this whole process? Okay, well, the first thing I always say to anybody that in a case they're interested in becoming a physician is don't do it for the money. And that might seem like a crazy thing to say, but I happen to enter medicine at the transition period when in the 70s, doctors were really well paid. It was really approximately, in fact, I think literally the summer that I got out of school, Medicare started what they called it, then the relative value scale, and they started clamping down on the payments. I mean, just literally right when I got out, and it's just gotten worse and worse and worse as everybody knows. So I actually don't think that's necessarily all bad. It's not good for people to be motivated to go into medicine for money, but there was a period and there are a segment of physicians who were. So it's probably a good thing that they should be weeded out by the current climate. So that aside, I really think the first thing is make sure you know what you're getting yourself into, because there's no doubt that this, every profession is different than you think it will be. But there's no doubt that it is an expensive proposition to become a physician. And a lot of people get into it and realize they don't like it, but feel that they have no choice but to keep on keeping on because of their debt and whatever. So, you know, spending time with doctors and finding out what it's really like, which unfortunately is harder than ever with all this, you know, ridiculous, misapplication of HIPAA and stuff. But you can usually find somebody who's willing to, you know, let you shadow them and do as many things as you can, not to make your resume look good, but so that you can see what it's really, really like and decide, you know, if you think it's worth the commitment. And I think that the best physicians are the ones that really feel called to do it. It's not about the money. They'll discover that, yes, this feels right to them. And once you know that that's the thing you really want to do, then you can do whatever it takes. Just like any other thing that you really, really love. It's more than a job. It is. It is. It is. It's a calling. Allison, and I say that all the time, it's a calling. It's not a job. And the thing is, you know, we live in a climate now where most young people can expect they're going to change jobs and maybe even careers several times during their lifetime. And that's probably going to be true even for physicians to a certain extent. But we're the only ones who have to put this huge commitment of time and money up front before we ever get any return. I mean, although as expensive as college is, I guess even going to college now, I mean, it costs more to go to college now than it costs to go to medical school when I was coming out. But it's a much bigger investment than any other profession that I know of. And also, I would encourage people to look at other, if you're attracted to medicine, but maybe you're not so sure you want to be a doctor or a physician, check out the other areas. I mean, when I started medical school, I didn't even know that there was such thing as physical therapy and physical therapists. Now, they can open their own businesses and work independently. And if you like something like a lot of people think they want to go into sports medicine, maybe if the sports medicine is the thing you like, physical therapy might be an alternative to consider. I'm just giving an example. Yeah. And last week's podcast, as I released, the podcast that came out last week is talking to a PA turned position and discussing some of the deciding factors of maybe somebody that is interested in medicine, maybe they should go the PA route instead of actually going to medical school and some of the pros and cons there. So there are lots of options. And the thing is, when I was making my choice, one of the big appeals was the fact that you, the physician was in charge, you know, you were the master of your own ship, so to speak. Well, unfortunately, that's just not true anymore. I mean, you get all the responsibility now, but you have hardly any control. So with that, I was on a phone call the other day with a premed student and he flat out asked me, is it worth it? With all the changes with Obamacare and all the hassles of electronic medical records and everything else that goes along with it, he said, is it worth it? Should I continue on this journey? What would you say to somebody if they ask you that question? I don't think that's a question anyone else can answer for you, but I think if you're asking the question, then the answer might be no, because there's just as many other kids out there who understand what's going on that don't have any doubt that that's still what they want to do. So I guess the other question would be, well, if you think it's not worth it, what do you want to do instead? And you soul search and you realize, well, then you come up with something and you realize, well, I like that just as good. Well, then probably it's not worth it, but if you do that questioning of yourself and you realize, well, I can't think of anything else I want to do, then the answer is it probably is worth it. But that's going to be so individual. I mean, actually, part of me is amazed that any month still wants to go into medicine. I'm glad because I'm going to be old someday and probably need doctors, although I worry that I won't ever see their eyes because they'll just be looking at their iPad or whatever their computer, their iPad, their iPhone, whatever they're using for their electronic medical records and note taking at that point. Yeah, and it's funny because I remember when I started there was all this concern about whether students were any good at the physical exam. I'm sure this is a concern that never goes away, but I can't help but feel that the other half of it now is whether or not anyone takes a history because it seems like, I mean, in reality, you usually don't need tests to figure out what's wrong with people. Because the patients think this really irritates me, you didn't do a good job if you didn't order a test. This is the most irritating reality of present medicine in terms of patient interaction that they really think that the tests are how you figure out stuff. It's just ridiculous. I mean, the flu test is a perfect example. First of all, not very sensitive, not very accurate, and at least an adult, you can usually tell if they got the flu without a test, but convince anybody of that. Yeah, that's true. I saw a patient today who thought he had the flu and I said, no, he's just have the cold. You're okay. No, it's interesting, but I think it comes with communication skills and being able to explain to patients, and you can usually, once you get good at those things and communicating, then a lot of those other concerns go out the window. All right. So in your mind, was it worth it for you? I honestly don't know. I don't know what I would have done differently. I mean, when I was in my academic career, I realized research was not for me. So I honestly don't know. Interesting. Where I am now is really trying to look ahead to my next career, because the emergency room, even in a small place, is stressful and not really wanting to be doing that in my 60s. I know I hate private practice, and I think I would hate it even if it paid good. So on the other hand, I've had a good career. I've had a lot of great experiences. So I honestly don't know the answer to that question. I'm not a big second-guesser. I think that when you make your choices in the present with the information you've got, and you always, hopefully, do the best you can in that moment. And if you go back and you do a lot of second-guessing, I wish it is, I don't think it's particularly productive, but that's just my personality. Yeah. I agree with you 100%. So you mentioned your next career. Would that involve podcasting? Well, I hope so. I've been doing my brain science podcast now for a little bit over seven years, and it's been really successful from the standpoint of numbers of listeners. It's taken at the top of the Medicine page of iTunes, and it's been there since the spring of 2007. So that's a pretty long time, but it turns out that it's pretty hard to make money doing podcasting. And I've just recently changed to a premium model where, because I have over 100 episodes, and people still download the first one, I've changed to a premium model. So now my most 25 recent ones are free, and the other ones are subscription. And I've had a pretty good response for my listeners about the very supportive response from my listeners about that. And it's interesting, because I realize it's making me feel a lot more motivated to do things like get new listeners. And I told somebody yesterday, it's amazing how even making a little bit of money doing something changes your motivation. Interesting. So you have the brain science podcast. As a family practitioner turned ER physician, where did brain science podcast come from? Well, as a grad student, I had a little bit of exposure to neuroscience, but what was going on back in the 70s was much more primitive. So it didn't have that much influence on me. But over the years, I've been interested in a lot of different things, like Jungian psychology and Buddhism. And I had happened about 10 years ago for the first time to actually start reading Western philosophy, after having spent many years reading Eastern philosophy. And I discovered this area of philosophy called philosophy of mind, which turns out to be right at the intersection with neuroscience, which is really fascinating. Because if you look at the history of philosophy, things start out being philosophy, and they become science. Once man gets to the point of being able to study the certain subject, like physics, for instance, or chemistry, where they were science, and then they became science. And that's kind of where the philosophy of mind is, except that tipping point. So that fascinated me. So I started reading neuroscience again. And then in 2005, iTunes introduced the podcasting. I really hadn't paid attention to it when it first came out in 2004. But when it appeared in iTunes, as soon as I heard my first podcast, I was like, I want to do this. I guess it was the ham in me. But the first time I tried to make a recording, of course, I hated my voice and sort of went, Oh, no, I'm not going to do this. But I still had the idea in my mind. And so after about a year, I had, and I didn't want to do a medical podcast, that would be too much like work. So after about a year, I happened to be on the forum of a show. I don't know if it's still on. It was called the sci-fi show. It was an Australian podcast that was about science fiction and philosophy. And they kept talking about on the forums, things about the brain and everything they said was wrong. And I kept posting, you should read this book, you should read that book, you should. And so the guy says, you can do a book review for me. So I did a review for him for the book by Jeff Hawkins called On Intelligence. Hawkins was the inventor of the Palm pilot, but he's totally devoted to neuroscience now. But and of course, he only gave me five minutes, which really required a lot of condensing. But after I recorded it, I was just really jazz. I was like, yeah, this is it. And I realized that neuroscience would be a great subject because I would never run out of material. And of course, it's just gotten hotter and hotter in the last few years. I mean, it was just kind of on the edge back then. But and I haven't run out of material. I have changed the way I cover it though, because at the beginning, I did some books that weren't written by actual scientists. And I did a lot of really basic stuff. Now I pretty much stick with interviewing authors that are scientists and scientists. I went through a phase when I was alternating book discussions and interviews. But since I've been on a monthly schedule for the last five years, I've mostly been doing interviews. Okay. And I discovered that I'm really good at doing interviews. I think that might be coming from all those years of talking to patients. Probably that's awesome. So what's your goal for the brain science podcast? My goal is basically to get people accurate information about neuroscience, to counteract the hype and a lot of the stuff that's out there is just so inaccurate and superficial. So my goal is really to give people accurate information. And that's why my tagline is the show for everyone who has a brain because it's really intended for regular people. Although I have teachers and people will come up to me and say, well, you know, I can't listen to your show because I don't have a brain. They somehow think that's funny. But I think it's funny. I just had an MRI though recently. So I know I have a brain. Yeah, it's been really surprising because when I started, I thought my listener would be a non scientist, sort of like average person who was just curious about how the brain works. But my actual audience is much more diverse than that. About 10 to 20% of the listeners are either physicians or PhDs of some sort. A lot of psychologists, actual working neuroscientists talk about something that keeps you on the straight and narrow on your accuracy. They listen because they say they like hearing about what the other guys are doing, you know, because they all get in their little niches. And I'll get emails to say, you know, listening to your show reminds of me why I went into neuroscience in the first place. And that's a big compliment. On the other end of the spectrum, I have a tattoo artist, a plumber, a house painter, a few high school students. Oh, that's pretty unusual. And then college students, you know, it's kind of weird when someone writes to you and says, well, I've decided to go to graduate school and neuroscience for listening to your show. I also, you know, get lots of emails from med school students too. But a lot of retired people, this is very diverse. I mean, it goes totally against all the rules about how you're supposed to target. Yeah, it makes it hard to target when there's so many. Yeah, but what I have to do is I have to try to vary the technical level between sort of general level, interest level and more technical. And what I've learned is that the less educated listeners, they don't mind if they don't understand everything. They really, really appreciate not being talked down to. And there's a lesson to this and when you're talking to your patients is if you talk down to them, this is what I see people do that aren't don't have good bedside manners. They talk down at the same time, they don't say a single word the person can understand. I mean, you have to translate, if you're talking to a patient, you've got to translate into, you know, normal English words for things. And that doesn't mean that your patient is dumb. It means they don't have the same jargon as you do. So, again, that's my favorite thing about being a physician is explaining things to patients. So that carries over into the brain science podcast. I like to think I'm really good at making complex subjects clear and understandable on getting to the key ideas so that that's what I focus on. And then when I interview someone, I help them to get to those key ideas. I wish that I could turn that into like a job for somebody else, but so far that hasn't happened. One day. No, actually, I used to wish I would be discovered by NPR, but I'm not so sure I can afford to work for them. So, that's the downside of being used to a physician's income. Yes, even with all the cuts in Medicare, we still make a comfortable income. Yeah. No. Well, I know my favorite podcast so far within the brain science podcast. And it was a recent one, episode 102, talking about DSM and over-diagnosing. What would you recommend to my audience who are mostly pre-meds and medical students? Do you have an episode that sticks out that maybe they should go listen to? Yeah, that's the downside of having put a few of my episodes behind a paywall, but I will say that even all the episodes that are behind the paywall, they're $1 a piece. So, that's like a song on iTunes and they're an hour long, so I think it's pretty reasonable. Also, my brain science podcast app is now free, so it's really easy to get the episodes through there if you have an Android or iPhone. It's also available for Windows, but you can't get the premium content on the Windows version. I'm not sure what that's about. I have an episode about neuroanatomy. It's episode 32, I think is pretty good. And I have an episode number eight is really old about neurotransmitters, which another neurologist wrote to me years ago and said he handed out the transcript of that to his staff. I think it's still pretty relevant, although I'm sure there's some new things that aren't in it since it's five years, six years old. In my books and ideas podcast, which is my other show, and all of those are free, there's quite a few interviews with physicians. And if you just go to booksandideas.com and you can find it. If you go to the episode list, you can see which ones. In fact, one of my earliest episodes was with someone who's a medical student at Harvard. He happened to be a student of my husband's. He had gotten a road scholarship and then went to Harvard. But I've had two, I think, excellent interviews with Paul Offit from the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia about vaccine issues. That's definitely information you need if you're going to deal with the anti-vaccine crowd. And I think I mentioned to you in the email about Robert Martinson. He was also in the books and ideas feed. So that's all that comes to the top of my head. That's a lot of suggestions for people. And for a dollar, I think it's worth it. Yeah, I mean, what I would actually, like I said, all the books and ideas, there's about 50 something of them. They're all free. For the Brain Science Podcast, like 102 is free. And you can get the most 25 most recent ones for free, sort of get a feel for what the, look at them, feel for what it's like. And then, if you like it, think about spending. The premium is like $4.99 a month and then you can get everything, transcripts, all the episodes. And once I get to 1,000 subscribers, I'm going to actually make extra content. Wow. Very cool. So depending on how many episodes you think you actually want, that might be a better deal. Where can people find that podcast in the app? That's, well, you can find it in iTunes. The easiest thing to do is, if you're using iTunes, the easiest thing to do is to search under Ginger Campbell. If you want to go to the website, which obviously will have links to iTunes and everything else, sprainsciencepodcast.com, very difficult. That's nice and easy. All right, I hope all my listeners out there go check out the Brain Science Podcast and go listen to at least episode 102 for free, which is one of the new 25 most recent ones. And then go back and listen to possibly episode 32 and episode. Yeah. And I've got an episode coming out next month that is going to shake your view of what the amygdala and the thalamus do. So if you still remember any neuroanatomy and you think you know what they do, you need to listen to that episode. It'll be out in about three weeks. I don't know. I think my understanding of the amygdala is pretty solid. So I don't know if it could be shaken. I don't know about that. All right, it's awesome. I will look forward to that one. And I hope people will go and say hi to you. Are you on Twitter at all? Yes, I'm Doc Artemis, D-O-C-A-R-T-E-M-I-S. Artemis is the Greek goddess, the one that was the huntress, the athletic one, and obviously the part is obvious. So Doc Artemis. And you can pretty much find me any place that you're looking. That's my usual name, my hat. That's my game of tag on Xbox. Although I'm horrible at multiplayer, so you don't want me on your team. But medical students don't have time to play video games. Never. All right, folks, that was Dr. Campbell. Again, you can find her at brainsciencepodcast.com. You can say hi to her on Twitter. She's at Doc Artemis, D-O-C-A-R-T-E-M-I-S. And again, I'll have links to all this in the show notes, which you can find at medicalschoolhq.net/64 as an episode 64. If you like today's podcast, go to say hi to her on Twitter. You can say hi to us on Twitter as well. We're at medical school HQ. Go check out our website and see what's going on there. If there's anything you missed, if you haven't seen, we're at medicalschoolhq.net. And then the last thing, our ratings and reviews. We did have one new five-star review this past week from FIPSMM, who's currently a freshman at Appalachian State University and just declared his major in dietetics. And he wants to go to medical school. So FIPSMM awesome. He said this podcast is one that I steadfastly listened to and recommend even to my professors. So FIPSMM, thank you. And that's a great idea. I like that. So if you're in school listening to this podcast, shoot an email to your professor and say, hey, this is a great thing. Maybe you want to share it with other students. That'd be awesome. I'd appreciate it very much. You can leave us a review and a rating. If you are enjoying the show, if you're getting stuff out of it, by going to medicalschoolhq.net/itunes. As always, I hope that information provided to you today will help better guide you on your path to becoming a physician. I hope to see you next time here at the medical school headquarters. [BLANK_AUDIO]
