Medical School

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What Skinny Doctors Don’t Get About Their Obese Patients

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Let’s just keep talking about treating obesity

Fifi Trixiebell (not her real name) wrote to [email protected] asking us to discuss what medical students learn about nutrition, and whether they think the keto diet is just another fad. Luckily, Madeline Slater, Emma Barr, Kyle Kinder, and newbie Sam Palmer–M1s all–just had a unit on nutrition so that’s an easy one. But Fifi Trixiebell had written in before, a message which–despite his policy of answering every listener question–Dave had passed over. Why did he ignore it? He’s not sure; it was a while back, but it may have triggered him (though, to be clear, it wasn’t Fifi’s fault). We also discuss an article from HuffPo about the “unique and persistent trauma” doctors visit upon their obese patients.

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Research Basics: Should I Get Involved and How Do I Start?

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research basics

The year is 1921. A medical student toils away at a dimly lit lab bench deep in the bowels of the University of Toronto. His intense concentration does not waver even as a bead of sweat begins to slip from his brow, splattering onto the chemical-stained surface below. Charles Best lets out a sigh of relief, unclenching the shoulders he had tightened while manipulating miniscule fragments of pancreatic tissue under the microscope.

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Are physicians hopeless in the face of the obesity epidemic?

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Obesity may not be hopeless, but it is very difficult for physicians and sufferers

Listener Hannah wrote in after shadowing physicians, noting that many of the morbidly obese patients she observed resisted their doctors’ advice to lose weight. Is there any hope that doctors can treat this intractable illness when patients don’t “want” to do the work? Aline Sandouk, Claire Casteneda, Kylie Miller, and newbie Ali Hassan offer their views and what they’ve learned so far about treating this difficult disease.

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