If you have a hard time remembering all the hormones as they pertain to menstruation and pregnancy, this episode is a perfect review for you. MS4 Julie Eggleton hosts this comprehensive overview of reproductive physiology in an engaging, Q&A format. 

Spoonful of Sugar

Reproductive Physiology

Anisha Reddy is back to host an enlightening episode on the physiology of bilirubin and many of the related disorders! Do you ever get confused by any of the following? Breast milk vs. breast feeding jaundice? Dubin-Johnson vs. Crigler-Najjar? Primary biliary vs. sclerosing cholangitis? This is your time to clarify and solidify these concepts. 

Bilirubin

Our newest team member Drashti Patel hosts a brief but comprehensive episode reviewing pleural effusions, a commonly encountered phenomenon in practice and on tests. If you’d like to solidify concepts such as Light’s Criteria for transudative vs. exudative effusions, this episode is made for you! 

Pleural Effusions

Sepsis is another bread-and-butter topic in medicine, and it is guaranteed to appear on boards as well in the hospital. Patients with sepsis are sick and have the potential to quickly decompensate, so timely and thorough management is key. In this episode, we’ll review the diagnostic criteria for sepsis and discuss strategies for management of sepsis. Let’s make sepsis less scary so you feel confident on your next encounter! 

Clinical Concepts - Sepsis

We are so excited to introduce the Clinical Concepts series! In these episodes, we’re taking our content review up a level so that material is geared more towards clinical rotations and the Step 2 exam. With Clinical Concepts, we’ll focus more on diagnostic and treatment strategies for various disease processes, while integrating basic concepts from Anatomy and Physiology when applicable. Tune into our first episode on atrial fibrillation to review how atrial fibrillation presents, how it is diagnosed, and the basic management algorithm. You are guaranteed to see atrial fibrillation multiple times in your career, so might as well solidify this topic now!

Clinical Concepts - Atrial Fibrillation

Cardiac pathophysiology can be one of the hardest topics to master in medical school. We’re lucky to have MS4 Anisha Reddy help out in this area by reviewing some of the basics of valvular heart disease. We’ll present lots of vignettes, provide some pearls, and cover these diseases the way they are tested on boards. 

Valvular Heart Disease

Prostate Cancer is the most common cancer (that’s not skin cancer) in men. In this episode, MS3 Gary Price reviews the diagnosis, pathophysiology, characteristics, and treatment of prostate cancer. Parts of this review transcend the scope of Step 1, but don’t worry because we’ll be sure to hone in on what’s important for the boards while giving you a comprehensive overview of the topic. 

Prostate Cancer

MS3 Tiana DiMasi is back to host an episode reviewing some of the most common neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, frontotemporal dementia, Lewy body dementia, vascular dementia, and more. We’ll also cover some common medical conditions that can masquerade as neurodegenerative disorders. Get excited for a thorough review! 

Neurodegenerative Disorders

Opioids are very important in clinical practice because of their crucial use and frequent abuse. The topic is difficult to understand, but can be easily mastered once conceptually understood. In this episode, MS4 Aditi Kothari provides an overview of opioids, including their mechanisms, uses, adverse effects, and management of abuse. As always, we will ask several questions along the way to reinforce important concepts.

Opioids

Step 1 Season is among us! This episode is meant to provide a little motivation and perspective for anyone who needs it in the days and weeks leading up to the exam. 

Step 1 Pep Talk

MS4 Waneeza Mughees is back with an episode on gynecological malignancies! In this episode, we’ll review several topics including molar pregnancies, choriocarcinoma, as well as ovarian, vaginal, vulvar, and breast tumors. We’ll be reviewing questions in a case-based, Q&A format, so get ready to participate! 

Gynecological Malignancies

Future Neurosurgeon & current MS4 Lohit Velagapudi dissects the topic of stroke in an easy, fun, and approachable way. We’ll talk through the pathophysiology of stroke, and then cover commonly tested stroke syndromes based on their location, blood supply, and clinical presentation. This topic is definitely a brainy one, but nothing we can’t handle with a step by step approach and some fun mnemonics. 

Stroke

Placental disorders all sound similar and can be really confusing. In this episode, hosted by MS3 Waneeza Mughees, we will break down placental abruption, placenta accepts, vasa previa, and placenta previa with the high-yield buzzwords for each so you can get these right every time on your exams and in practice! 

Placental Disorders

Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis are relatively common in patients, and they pop up frequently on the boards! There are a lot of specific findings associated with each Crohn’s and UC, and there are also a lot of overlapping findings. The two diseases can be easily confused, and it’s really important to be able to distinguish the two. In this episode, we’ll try to do just that with both silly mnemonics and some physiological explanations. As always, it’s all about understanding concepts and making key connections.

Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Cirrhosis is such a cool topic (if your definition of cool = highly nerdy) because damage to the liver has systemic effects that involve nearly every organ. In this episode, we’ll review the pathophysiology of cirrhosis and how this relates to physical exam and lab findings, as well as some common complications of cirrhosis that you should be aware of. We won’t cover everything as this is a very broad topic with so many possible sequelae, but if you’re studying cirrhosis, at least know this!

Cirrhosis

A podcast made for medical students, by medical students, to help the medicine go down

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Spoonful of Sugar

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