WIDLIMS - What I Didn't Learn in Medical School

From midwife to medic with Dr Rumbi

In this week's episode, junior doctor and host of WIDLIMS – What I Didn't Learn in Medical School Linda speaks with Dr Rumbi Mutenga. 

They cover different ways of getting into medical school, Dr Rumbi's own journey via midwifery, working relationships between doctors and allied healthcare professionals, widening access and equality in medicine, as well as discussing medical education and reproductive health stigmas. 

Be sure to follow WIDLIMS on Twitter and Instagram under the username @widlims. 

You can find the show notes on this episode with more reading and links to anything mentioned in the episode on lindadoes.com/widlims25 for this episode. 

Dr Rumbi Mutenga is on TikTok and Instagram @rumbithemedic. 

Please note this is a podcast for educational and entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as individual medical advice. 

Thank you for listening – please share this episode and other WIDLIMS episodes if you did, as this is a self-funded one woman project.

Tips for new doctors from a new doctor

What did medical school not teach me about working as a junior doctor, which I wish I knew? In this 30 minute episode, I give you general tips in two broad areas to help you feel more prepared for your first job as a doctor: life around work, and life at work. We cover your rights as a doctor (leave, pay), what might be expected of you, top tips for teamwork, how to look after your own health, and much more. 

See time stamps for episode below. Check out the show notes on lindadoes.com/widlims24 for links to everything I mentioned in the show. 

Please follow @widlims on Instagram and Twitter to stay up to date with the latest, and to chat to me. I love hearing from you!

If you enjoyed listening - please give me a 5 star rating and share the episode around. I appreciate it so much when you do. 

WIDLIMS is a podcast created by me - Linda (she/her) - a junior doctor working in the UK. It is a show for education and entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as individual advice. The accuracy of information shared in terms of contracts and junior doctor rights may change with time. 

Time stamps:

2:15 Part One - preparing for FY1, my favourite memories

3:44 Fears and imposter syndrome

5:40 Making the most of shadowing/apprenticeship

6:40 What is expected of an FY1 doctor?

8:02 Useful resources

9:18 Your rights and obligations

11:05 Passing the F1 year, and the ePortfolio (Horus/Turas)

12:40 Asking for help/who to turn to

14:25 Looking after yourself

17:45 Part Two - tips for working as an FY1

18:10 What might a typical shift look like?

21:15 Tips for staying organised

22:40 Tips for teamwork incl. working with seniors

25:08 Asking for help at work

26:00 Breaks, working late, exception reporting

28:20 Difficult scenarios - death, dying, aggression, bullying

Plant-based diets in childhood and beyond with Dr Yami

Be sure to follow @widlims on Insta/Twitter for more content :)

Click here to access the episode show notes with Doctor Yami's details, anything we referred to in the episode and further reading. 

** please note: this is a podcast for education and entertainment purposes only, and should not be taken as individual medical advice - consult your doctor for any concerns **

In this episode, podcast host and junior doctor Linda chats to Dr Yami Cazorla-Lancaster (she/her), a US board-certified paediatrician/pediatrician, lifestyle medicine physician and health coach. 

We discuss WHY plant-based diets are absolutely healthy for all stages of childhood and development, and the importance of fiber/fibre and antioxidants found in abundance in plant foods. Dr Yami also covers common concerns people might have, such as whether dairy is necessary for health, why we should not fear tofu, nutrients of concern on a vegan diet. What do you do if you've got a picky eater? What do you do if you're the only vegan in the family? How can we raise kids to become intuitive eaters? Is intuitive eating in childhood the same as for adults?

Thank you for listening - if you enjoyed the episode, do check out the other 22 WIDLIMS-episodes available wherever you get your podcasts. Please follow @widlims on social media, share the podcast and give it a 5-star review on whatever platform you are using.

I would like to extend a massive thanks to anybody reading this, and to all of my lovely lovely listeners who have regularly tuned in, or just dropped in for an episode. I am grateful that you let me share my passion with you.

Better health? Sleep on it!

Dr Michael Farquhar, a consultant in sleep medicine, joins me for this episode on the importance of good sleep for health. We discuss alien abductions, caffeine naps and flexible consistency in sleep routines. 

Essentially, we cover the basics of what sleep is and how to improve yours, and also spend some time focusing on how night shift workers can mitigate the risks of sleep deprivation and disrupted sleep patterns, as I have found this is not always covered in mainstream sleep advice. Shout-out to all the night shift workers, including new junior doctors and nurses joining the NHS in these trying times! 

Find show notes HERE on my website lindadoes.com. Follow @widlims on Instagram here and on Twitter here. You can find Dr Michael Farquhar on Twitter here. 

See you next time :)

**This is a podcast for education and entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as individual medical advice** also, I am sorry for the poor sound quality in this episode - we were having technical issues and I am just glad we were able to record in the end, but I hope it doesn't detract from your listening!

WIDLIMS is a podcast created by Linda when she was a medical student - she now works as a junior trainee doctor in England. 

'The NHS is letting down trans people' - barriers to equality in trans healthcare

This week's episode is a discussion with two fantastic doctors: Dr Kate Nambiar (a sexual health and gender identity doctor working in England) and Dr Sophie Quinney (a GP working in Wales and the Welsh Gender Service). The quote in the title is from a UK government report, linked for you here.

Content warning: transphobia, suicide

We talk about a range of topics, including transition-related healthcare, supporting trans and non-binary patients in primary care and hospital specialties, hormone therapy and wider social justice issues affecting trans people both in medicine and generally in society. I am so grateful to Dr Nambiar and Dr Quinney, who shared a wealth of knowledge and tips on how to be a better ally and push for change. We only scratched the surface here, so I hope you go out and research more for yourself. Trans people exist everywhere, and especially in medicine no doctor should be uninformed on how to treat a trans patient with dignity and respect.

Lots more information and references for everything we talked about to be found in the show notes HERE. A glossary for terms you may be unfamiliar with can be found HERE. You can also find me on Instagram @widlims and Twitter @widlims. I always love hearing from you :) And please, if you enjoyed the episode, do share it far and wide!

Until next time – take care!

 

Nutrition in medical education with Nutritank

Be sure to follow for more content @widlims on Insta/Twitter.

Show notes with Nutritank details and anything referred to in the episode here. 

In this episode, host and final year medical student Linda chats to Ally Jaffee (she/her) and Dr Iain Broadley (he/him) who founded Nutritank, one of the first student-lead lifestyle medicine initiatives in the UK. Nutritank is "an innovative information hub of food, nutrition and lifestyle medicine. Promoting the need for greater nutrition and lifestyle medicine education within healthcare training and empowering members of the public to improve their health" (source).

The interview covers

We discuss WHY it is so important for medical students and doctors to learn about nutrition, despite there being dedicated allied healthcare professionals such as dieticians, why it is proving challenging to get lifestyle medicine in UK medical school curricula, what culinary medicine and social prescribing involve as well as lots of information about what Nutritank is, has achieved and the opportunities they provide for students. 

 

This is the final regularly scheduled WIDLIMS episode for a little while. Please follow @widlims on social media, share the podcast and give it a 5-star review on whatever platform you are using. I would like to extend a massive thanks to anybody reading this, and to all of my lovely lovely listeners who have regularly tuned in, or just dropped in for an episode. I am grateful that you let me share my passion with you.

 

xoxo Linda

Approaching anorexia with Best of Bettina

Follow @widlims on Instagram/Twitter. Full show notes here. Check out Bettina's podcast, Best of Bettina here and her Instagram.

In episode 19 of What I Didn't Learn in Medical school, host and final year medical student chats to Bettina about her experience of being diagnosed with anorexia at 15 and eventually recovering. We cover some important things in terms of how she was treated by healthcare professionals, and what things help someone in eating disorder recovery and beyond.

It is important to listen to those with actual lived experience of a condition, and not end up forgetting what matters to the actual person at the core of it all. This is why I am so grateful that Bettina shares her story and tips with us all today. Be sure to check out her podcast, Best of Bettina as well as the episode where I was interviewed giving my thoughts on how eating disorder education in medical school is. It was titled ”Eating disorders don’t have a look” and can be found here.

Painful penetration with the Vaginismus Network

Show notes with all references and further information here. Follow @widlims on Instagram/Twitter. Follow @theVagNetwork on Instagram.

Do you suffer from painful sex? Do you not know how to counsel a patient who says they cannot insert tampons without pain? Is it possible to be "too tight"?

Vaginismus is a condition which makes sex painful, but it can also make inserting tampons difficult, and affects people in many different ways. I spoke to Natalie who is a volunteer with the Vaginismus Network, about the condition and painful sex. We cover what causes it, how it manifests and how to diagnose it, the scarce research available on the subject (and why women's pain is often dismissed) plus lots of people's personal experiences with Vaginismus and what healthcare professionals need to do better.

No topic should be taboo. Content warning: sex, painful sex, sexual assault.

Disclaimer: the discussion in this episode is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as individual medical advice.

Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word! I would love to hear from you :)

Giving culturally relevant advice in healthcare

This week's guest is Amaeze Madukah, a nutritionist in the UK. Prompted by an Instagram post of hers about how diet advice is often Euro-centric, I wanted to further explore the topic with her, and am grateful that she came on the show. Listen to learn about implicit bias and power distance, how these mean that certain populations receive suboptimal healthcare advice and what healthcare practitioners should keep in mind when giving advice to people from different ethnic backgrounds. We also chatted about other aspects relating to culture, food and language - I hope you enjoy the content and learn something new. Sorry for the slightly iffy sound quality this week!

Show notes here. Follow me @widlims on Instagram/Twitter.

Check out Amaeze on Life's recipe and Wellness in Colour.

You may want to learn more and listen to WIDLIMS episode #3 on racism in medicine and episode #9 which covers some aspects of endometriosis, Black women's pain and racism.

The skinny on cholesterol and diet

Find the show notes here, and follow @widlims on Instagram/Twitter. 

This Solo Sunday short episode featuring final year medical student Linda is all about cholesterol, and the things she wish she learned earlier in order to counsel future patients on how to efficiently and safely lower cholesterol levels, all with lifestyle including diet!

Is lean meat better? What about oily fish? Is fibre (fiber in the US) that beneficial? What guidelines should we listen to?

I hope you learn something new.

NB. This is a podcast for educational and entertainment purposes only, and should not be taken as individual medical advice. Reading the show notes is encouraged for references and further information and reading.