Sink or Swim Podcast
110 episodes listed below
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This podcast aims to give an inside look into the lives and experiences of those who attend and are associated with Nova Southeastern University's College of Allopathic Medicine (NSU MD)! Our podcast is student-driven, and reflects the personal views of both our hosts and our guests. Our comments do not reflect any official views of NSU MD.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Medical students translate exams, rotations, specialty decisions, and residency applications into candid guidance grounded in their own training.
Sink or Swim turns medical training into a candid peer-to-peer education, with fourth-year students explaining both the work and the decisions surrounding it.
The L&D board looks different when a student currently on rotation tells you what to check.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Practical med school advice that stays grounded in Step 1 habits, steady encouragement, and lived experience.
Sheena keeps the advice rooted in day-to-day survival, not grand theory. She moves through M1 to M4 with a clear sense of what she wishes she had learned earlier, and that personal angle gives the episode some weight.
A candid med-school check-in about why the path matters.
Three fourth-year med students use a simple prompt about their younger selves to trace why they chose medicine, what training has taken from them, and what it has taught them about the wider care team.
A plainspoken conversation for parents of future doctors, centered on MCAT frustration, medical-school grit, and the support that keeps things moving.
The episode keeps its focus on how Katie's medical path has landed at home, especially with her mother, Trina Kennan. What emerges is a plainspoken conversation that should land with parents of future doctors.
A practical guide to turning fourth year into strategy, not drift.
Gerald Chang presents fourth year as the stretch of medical school that becomes more self-directed and more strategic. Once electives, a sub-I choice, recommendation letters, and residency presentation come into play, the year shifts away from fixed structure and toward shaping…
A practical, conversational look at how research opportunities are found.
Research is framed as a practical way into the field, with mentors, established programs, cold emails, conferences, and other openings all treated as usable routes in.
Medical-school wellness, framed as balance, planning, and baseline learning rather than a slogan.
The episode treats wellness as a practical matter: making room for gym time, concerts, visits with family and friends, and study time inside medical school.
A practical couples-match conversation with real trainee texture.
Christina and Andrew talk through couples matching from inside the process, starting with how they met in medical school and moving into what interviews felt like and how they are shaping a joint list.
A clear history of emergency care that shows how the modern system was built.
The episode follows emergency medicine from the Napoleonic Wars to Freedom House paramedics in Pittsburgh, then to Cincinnati and the modern ED and EMS systems.
Campus radio from the wrong side of reality.
Campus decisions, Northeast news, and Northeast priorities.
How research culture changes in practice.
Conversations from inside the IT channel.
Gerald Chang, a fourth-year NN2MD student, uses this Sink or Swim Podcast episode to lay out how medical students can build a family medicine application from year 1 through Match.
Sink or Swim Podcast centers this conversation on the “fourth trimester,” with Sydney Rizman interviewing OB-GYN Dr.
Sheena, a fourth year medical student at NSUMD, opens Sink or Swim Podcast part two at Ether Day in 1846 and follows the move from ether to chloroform.
Christian, Tiffany, and Crystal describe three different paths into medicine, including behavioral therapy, EKG work, psychobiology, psychology, and biochemistry.
Autumn Pugh, a fourth-year internal medicine applicant at NSU, and Katie, a fourth-year OB-GYN applicant, compare away rotations, MSPEs, ERAS, and residencyCAS.
Christina, Andrew, Brittany, and Nicole discuss sub-I rotations, away rotations, and audition rotations for fourth-year medical students, with examples from neurology, general surgery, and emergency medicine.
Sunaina’s MedCast elective talk on "The Impact of Food on Health" ties Hippocrates’ line “let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” to Ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, and modern nutritional science.
William Dawson, a fourth-year medical student at NSUMD, opens by naming the episode's focus on falling behind, anxiety, emotion regulation, and procrastination.
Financial education episode where Dr.
Zan Manzoor opens by introducing the show and kicking off a conversation about specialty choice.
If you lay your head down at night wondering what if I could have matched surgery, then you need to rank surgery first
Sheena, a fourth-year medical student from NSUMD, traces anesthesia from ancient trepanation and tracheotomies to ether at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Gerald Chang, a fourth-year NSUMD student, opens Sink or Swim Podcast with a case for making medical school fun without neglecting tests, rotations, or patient care.
Sink or Swim Podcast’s “A Letter To My Younger Self” follows three NSUMD fourth-year medical students, Tashiz, Katie, and Maria, as they compare childhood motivations, gap years, and the paths that led them to medicine.
Christina, a fourth-year at Nova Southeastern University headed into neurology, and Andrew, a fourth-year headed into general surgery, use this Sink or Swim episode to explain couples matching from their own process.
Christian and Tiffany trace their research paths from UCLA, Santa Clara University, and the University of Miami to med school projects, with Christian describing county COVID outbreak work and Tiffany describing MSTAR at UCLA.
Sheena, a fourth-year medical student at NSUMD applying anesthesia, explains how to thrive on anesthesia elective rotations by staying early, curious, and useful in the OR.
Sydney Risman, a fourth-year medical student, and Stephanie, a third-year medical student on OB-GYN rotation, build the episode around surviving the rotation and preparing for the shelf exam.
Christina opens the episode with Andrew, Nicole, Brittany, and herself as they talk through Step 1 and Step 2 preparation.
This episode explores the history of emergency medicine and EMS, tracing origins from Napoleonic battlefield triage by Dr.
This educational podcast episode breaks down the basics of anesthesia, covering its types, history, and scientific mechanisms, with insights from a medical student host and an anesthesiologist guest.
Gerald Chang frames fourth year as the final stretch of medical school.
Sink or Swim Podcast’s "Risks, Recovery, and the Future of Anesthesia" puts numbers on anesthesia safety, starting with a stated death risk of 1 in 200,000 in a healthy patient and serious complications around 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 20,000.
Sheena starts by telling medical students they are going to be okay.
Gerald, a fourth-year medical student at NSUMD, uses this episode to break down the primary care clerkship for students aiming at family medicine and other outpatient specialties.
Four fourth-year medical students sit down to talk about wellness.
William Dawson, a fourth-year medical student at NSUMD, frames the episode around feeling behind, anxiety, emotion regulation, and procrastination in medical school.
Sink or Swim Podcast’s “In Her Scrubs: Perspectives of Women in Medicine” centers Christina, Nicole, and Brittany, three fourth-year medical students at Nova Southeastern University.
Sergio Medina frames Sink or Swim Podcast’s "Uncovering the Autism Vaccine Scare" around Andrew Wakefield, whose 1998 Lancet paper falsely suggested a link between MMR and autism.
Katie and her mother, Trina Kennan, use Sink or Swim Podcast to trace a path from childhood doctor games and a kindergarten 'valedictorian' story to medical school at Nova.