Medical school is an intense, focused, and sometimes seemingly unrelenting endeavor. However, when the investment of time is viewed through the lens of lasting benefits, and when the chosen specialty intersects with one’s area of high interest, the journey is potentially more fulfilling. And, as with all other learning experiences, teachers matter. Medical students Akul Munjal and Vamsi Reddy share a few of their thoughts about teaching and learning, and they each tell us about their favorite teacher.
Neurosurgery and orthopedic surgery (2:15)
Borborygmi – its meaning and significance (3:00)
Why be a physician? (4:15)
Meaningful work (4:45)
The neurosurgery Operating Room (OR) at every opportunity (5:30)
Don’t pursue medicine for the wrong reasons (6:15)
Look ahead – consider one’s life in a particular area (6:30)
Practical experiences at nth Dimensions (7:30)
A good medical rotation illuminates potential (8:00)
Hammers and screws and people – orthopedic surgery! (8:15)
20+ years of school plus residency – a lot of schooling (9:00)
Teaching skills adjust with the structure of the learning environment (9:45)
Important to convey the reasons for the content being taught (11:05)
Teachers need to remember what it’s like to be a beginner (11:45)
Great teachers understand each student’s perspective and context (12:30)
View each student as full of potential (13:15)
Teaching requires true understanding (14:30)
Thinking in “the language” of the content (world language, science, math…) (15:00)
Monkeys can’t actually explain the slides (15:30)
Understanding doesn’t automatically equate to being able to teach (16:00)
Standardized tests’ value (17:20)
Approach teaching by asking if the format and content are accessible and meaningful for the students (18:30)
Strengthen the relationship between first and second year medical students and their third and fourth year colleagues (19:15)
Don’t judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree (20:20)
Expand on what captures student interest (21:10)
Kahn Academy concepts (21:30)
The LSAT as an indicator of law school acceptance and as a gauge of one’s professional practice thereafter (22:30)
Focus on “next” and individualize earlier (23:05)
Memorable learning experience – a change of pace (24:45)
Problem based opportunities where “facts” are applied (25:10)
A kind word of interest and support makes a huge difference (25:45)
Take the time to “notice” (26:15)
Hand surgery – trust plus support equals a boost in confidence and skill (26:30)
The real lesson from Theory of Knowledge - Brain in a Vat (27:00)
We need to engage in intellectual humility (27:45)
Mr. Gribble – cared enough to attend the White Coat ceremony (28:15)
Ms. Mary Britt – really knows and cares about her students (29:35)
Thanks, educators, for your sacrifices (30:50)
Teachers and doctors - both have impacts on the populations they serve (31:25)
Borborygmi: Food for Thought podcast (32:10)
Todnem-Ready Review app for Neurosurgery resident board exams (32:25)
Medical College of Georgia link: https://www.augusta.edu/mcg/
Borborygmi: Food for Thought podcast link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/borborygmi-food-for-thought/id1507529435
nth Dimensions – advancing women and minorities in specialty fields - www.nthdimensions.org
Kahn Academy – www.khanacademy.org
Riverwood International Charter School - https://www.fultonschools.org/Page/181
Theory of Knowledge: https://sites.google.com/site/ricsibtok/home
Brain in a Vat: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxyaWNzaWJ0b2t8Z3g6MjkyYTE4NWYzODE3YjI3YQ
AP World History: https://sites.google.com/site/ricsapworldhistory/about-me
Brookwood High School - https://www.gcpsk12.org/BrookwoodHS
David Reynolds: What matters most in learning, the challenge, the thrill, the benefits, interacting with other people or something else entirely? What is the connection between leading and learning? Does change drive learning or does learning drive change? What's more important, teaching or learning? Is everyone a leader, a learner a teacher? Want answers? Listen in as we address these intriguing issues through commentary and with guests who share their thinking and tell us their stories. Lead. Learn. Change.
Akul Munjal: It's really hard to break things down to their fundamental steps or their fundamental concepts.
Vamsi Reddy: Students going to be independent enough that they'll figure out what they want to do in life. You have a lot of opportunities for K through 12 in which you are able to do that.
Akul Munjal: I realized that a lot of my deficits in first year I could overcome.
Vamsi Reddy: Truly understand where they're coming from and be a great teacher and a great mentor can go a long way and change a lot of lives.
Akul Munjal: It's the only job where you get to use hammers and screws on an actual person.
Vamsi Reddy: I hope everything's okay. I hope you're doing well. And I hope you're healthy everything's fine. And just someone taking the time to notice and come up to me and say something like that, had a huge impact on my life.
Akul Munjal: Thank all the other educators. You guys sacrificed a lot to teach us.
David Reyolds: Vamsi and Akul. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to respond to the questions that you posed when I was a guest on your podcast. And I appreciate the time you're taking to flip the scenario around today and share your thoughts on some of the same topics. Please introduce yourselves and mention your medical school details such as your intended specialty and any other detail you'd care to add.
Vamsi Reddy: Hi, my name is Vamsi Reddy and I'm a third year medical student at the medical college of Georgia, with Akul. And my intended specialty is neurosurgery. So I'm going to go into neurological surgery. I won't be out of school for a long time, but I'm really looking forward to it.
Akul Munjal: My name is Akul Munjal and I'm also a third year medical student at the medical college of Georgia. I'm intending to go into orthopedic surgery. I have a little bit shorter of a time in school than Vamsi.
Interviewer: Have either of you guys heard of a medical student named Jackson Reynolds by any chance?
Akul Munjal Nope. Never heard of him.
David Reynolds: Perfect. Okay. We'll make sure we leave that in and send that clip to him. Before we dig into your views on teaching and learning. Please tell our listeners how you came up with the name, Borborygmi for your podcast.
Akul Munjal: There's a few reasons why we came up with that. My reasoning was a little bit different than Vamsi’s. But one of the things about Borborygmi is it's a sound that you can hear sometimes in a small bowel obstruction, which is a surgical problem, and we are both aspiring surgeons. So I thought the name was kind of befitting.
Vamsi Reddy: It's really interesting to see how everyone analyzes words and the different meanings. Borborygmi is the sound that your intestines make when fluid or air passes through them. And you can also hear these stomach rumblings when you're hungry. And so for me, I thought about it more as you're hungry for knowledge, and that's why I like the subtext for a podcast is food for thought. It's we're satiating that hunger.
David Reynolds: I think that's really creative. And of course just the word Borborygmi sounds so great when you say it and when people see it in print, they think what is that? And then they go look it up and then they realize what's going on. I think it's really fascinating. What led you to medical school? When did you decide or know that you wanted to be a physician or maybe who or what guided you to your intended specialty? Just anything about your path from before I was going to do this to, I know I'm going to do that.
Vamsi Reddy: There's two separate answers. One is why I wanted to be a physician, and two is why I wanted to go into my intended specialty. I think I've always for a long time toyed with the concept of being a physician, because I think it gives me a reason to ... My innate work that I'm doing is going to be something that is meaningful. And I know there's a lot of jobs like that. There's educators and there's many more occupations like that, but I also had like an innate craving for the knowledge about biology and the inner workings of how we work in general. And then this goes into my intended specialty of neurosurgery is my cravings for biology were mainly about how we think, how we function, how we process information. And so that left me with psychiatry or neurosurgery or neurology. And so it was always in that realm.
I think what really pushed me into my field was when I was an undergrad, I had the opportunity to shadow a ton. And I shadowed a lot of different specialties. And what I found was when it had to come to a choice between internal medicine and surgery, I loved being in the OR. I loved having the ability to directly impact change with my hands. And then I went from general surgery to neurosurgery, to vascular surgery. And what I realized was I love general surgery. And then I was just in love with neurosurgery. But after that, every specialty I went to, like the cardiothoracic surgeries and the Vasco surgeries, I would sneak out of the OR and go back to the neurosurgery OR. I think that's when I clicked that this is probably what I want to do. That's why I chose neurosurgery.
Akul Munjal: For me, along the lines that Vamsi had, it's two separate answers. An answer to the first question, why medicine is a little bit complicated. I think when you shadow in medical school, when you're in college or high school, or whenever you do it, it can be really seductive, because you see these doctors, they got to solve all of these problems. They have really good relationships with their patients, for the most part. Their work is really meaningful and it looks like it's really cool. I thought, okay, at the time I saw that, I was like, "Oh wow, this seems really, really cool." But then at the back of my head, I was like, "Well, I think it's cool now, but that doesn't mean I'll think it's cool in 10 years or when I'm actually doing it."
My reasoning for going to medical school was medicine is so broad. The in a day in an orthopedic surgeon is completely different than the day in a radiologist, and the day of the life of a radiologist, or the day in the life of even something that's kind of similar, like a neurosurgeon completely different day to day workflows. I don't have to like everything. I just have to like one thing. That was my reasoning for making the commitment to do that. And then in terms of orthopedic surgery. When I was a first year in medical school, I was one of the worst anatomy students in our class. I was like, "I'll probably not be a surgeon. I it's, it's probably just not in the cards for me". But I went to this orthopedic surgery conference when I was a first year. It was called Anti-dimensions.
It's something where they let you play with the drills and they let you do all of these things. You're basically working on models. I thought it was really interesting and I thought it was really cool. In the back of my head, I was like, "Well, if I do do surgery, it'll probably be orthopedics, but it's probably not going to be surgery." Then I started third year and, and surgery was my first rotation.
And at MCG how surgery rotation works, you have four weeks of general surgery, and then you have two weeks of two subspecialty surgeries. And I did my general surgery rotation and I really, really, really liked it. I really enjoyed it. And I realized that a lot of my deficits in first year I could overcome. And then I had orthopedic surgery and I just really liked the instrumentation. It's the only job where you get to use hammers and screws on an actual person. Well, neurosurgery gets to do that too, but it's not as fun. I really liked that. And I really liked vascular surgery as well, but I realized that I liked the bigger things more than I liked the smaller things that vascular surgeons have to do.
David Reynolds: My ears were peaked as an industrial arts person when I hear about hammers, drills and chisels. I can appreciate your interest in that. You've both been in school for a long time. Vouncy, did you go to kindergarten?
Vamsi Reddy: I did.
David Reynolds: And Akul, Did you attend kindergarten?
Akul Munjal: Yes, sir.
David Reynolds: That's 13 years in K-12 and then four years of undergrad. And now you finished three of medical school, with one to go. So we're at 20 consecutive years of school and counting. You have had a lot of teachers over that period of time, including physicians now, and many, many other people in the past. What have you discovered to be the most important characteristics or qualities or practices that make a teacher, a great teacher? Let's start this one with Akul.
Akul Munjal: This question can be broken down into a few questions, because teaching in different situations requires different skills. For example, in medical school, your third year, it's basically you an attending, a couple of residents maybe, and maybe another one or two medical students. So there's a lot of learning that happens from each other. And then there's a lot of learning that happens because the residents are teaching you stuff. And then the attendings also teaching you some stuff. The teaching there is very different than the teaching in a college classroom with 500 people, or even in high school, or middle school where you have 30 students. I guess I'll break my answer up, based off of a few of the situations. I'll start off with the high school or middle school teacher. And I think a lot of the points you adequately, you addressed really, really well,
in the previous episodes, when you said that they understand their students, when they understand what motivates their students. Like you pointed out how some students would really, really value having their painting up on the wall, but other students would much rather have that be at home. Understanding what makes your students tick is really important. I think also when you're a teacher in high school in particular, it's really easy to teach for the SAT or teach for the AP exam or the CRCT or some other standardized test.
It's really hard to get your students to critically think about the information and why they actually should know it. Like, for example, why is it important that I know about the cold war? Well, a lot of the stuff that happened in the cold war relates to right now. If you understand the cold war, you can understand what's happening right now in the world. And when people talk about things, you can contribute to that discussion. I think that in that setting that's really, really important, but then when it comes to medical education and specifically in the small group settings, I think one of the things that happens when you're in medical school or in any graduate program you become so accustomed to the information, because you're using it day in and day out.
You kind of forget what it's like to be a beginner in that. For example, if I had to teach somebody how to type, it would be really hard for me to do that because I'm like, "Well, you just do it. It's really easy to fall under that pattern. But it's really hard to take a step back and be like, "Okay, this is what a person that's never done this before, this is the understanding that they would come in with." I think a lot of professors in medical school fall under the trap of being like, "Oh, this is really easy." And it's really hard to break things down to their fundamental steps or their fundamental concepts.
David Reynolds: Those are some great points. Vamsi, what about you? The qualities that make a teacher a great one?
Vamsi Reddy: I think that Akul covered a lot of it. And in a lot of depth. For me at every level, I think it's truly a teacher or an educator who understands where the student is coming from and tries to see their perspective. For example, in elementary school or middle school, for people who are of a lower socioeconomic status, like trying to understand where they're coming from, trying to understand what difficulties they face at home and not necessarily teaching as if they're only their student, but seeing them as an individual and as a human.
And this goes all the way up to K through 12, and then also medical education. It's for example, connecting that memorized fact to why these facts are important and trying to show why this will impact their future. Why it's important to them. And individualizing each student and truly breaking down that student into not just a student, but an individual human someone who has vast capacities. And again, like we talked about in the previous episode, there's no such thing as a poor learner, just someone who, the environment hasn't been conducive for them to learn. And I think given that situation, that all educators, as long as they're able to take the time and really focus on what their students want to learn, how the students think that makes them a great educator. They can elevate their educational experience just by trying to understand where that student's coming from.
David Reynolds: You've really outlined some very specific characteristics or attributes that good teachers possess and that they leverage in order to ensure that students learn that students are engaged. So as the student, whether that's in high school or college or medical school, how do you know that you really know and understand something?
Vamsi Reddy: What I think is indicative of someone truly understanding or knowing something is the ability ... There's a two-part answer. One is the ability to teach it. I think when someone is able to teach something that they've learned at that point, they're proficient enough to truly process that information and then convey that information to another individual.
I think that is something that can indicate understanding of material. And the other is something which is more seen in language classes, like French and Spanish and German is when you start to think in that language. For example, I had an immersion course when I was in my French class, where we had to spend a camp. It was in Georgia where we spent a week in a French camp. And towards the end of the camp, you start to realize that I'm thinking in French now. And I think that's when you know it, because you're proficient enough to think in that language. And that's that applies to science and math and everything where you can kind of think about scientific concepts and understand and be proficient in that language.
Akul Munjal: Vamsihit the nail on the head when he said that it kind of depends on the discipline. But I think the fundamental to that is being able to communicate that idea effectively to somebody else. Any monkey can get in front of a set of slides and just read what's on there, but it's really hard to actually explain information to other people.
I think that's like the most critical thing. And then I think that there's also the some things that are subject-specific. A great scientist might not necessarily be able to teach the information really well, but he or she may be able to use that information to design experiments because they understand the mechanism of action of reagent X with reagent Y. I think that that's really important that it depends on the discipline and some really good historians. They might not necessarily be able to explain the historical concepts really well, but they have written books about how history is the way it is. I think it depends on the discipline and it depends on what the person's original strengths are.
David Reynolds: In order to ensure that people really do understand in the way that you both just described, what shift do you think would have the most impact on creating that environment in schools? If you could change one thing in schools, whether that's undergrad or PK, 12 or medical school, what change would you make to ensure that it would be an even more robust learning environment?
Akul Munjal: I'll, again, answer it in a few parts with the first part being with K through 12. I think one of the things that we talked about when you were discussing education was the role of standardized tests. And I think that one of the ways to do this is ... I understand that standardized tests are our reality. They're going to have to happen for whatever reason we have them. And for whatever reason, a lot of people care about them a lot, but that doesn't mean that they can't changed. I think that instead of necessarily maybe having all of them be multiple choice questions, maybe we could have some free response questions. And I know that this isn't necessarily something that's like really absurd, because when I was in high school, I was a part of the international baccalaureate program. And a lot of our standardized tests were actual essay prompts, or they were for science tests they were explained this, or draw out this mechanism or whatever.
I know that there are systems in place that could make that a reality. I think that's the first thing for K through 12 education. I think that that would be something that would be really important. And then for a medical education, I think that one of the things is that the first two years of medical school they're taught by PhDs, or MDs that have been practicing for a really long time. They'll repeat slides from previous years, they won't necessarily think about, is this in the best interest of students, will they be able to understand this? Do they even understand the language that I'm using to explain these concepts? I think you really have to critically answer those questions every year. Kind of like you pointed out, you can't just think that, okay, this worked five years ago, it's going to work today.
I think repeatedly asking and answering those questions is critical. But I think an actionable thing that we could do is get more third and fourth year medical students involved in the education of first and second year students, because they remember that what that's like. And instead of emphasizing the relationship between attending physicians and third and fourth year medical students, instead emphasizing the relationship between the residents and the third and fourth year students as a way of learning. And one of the ways that I personally know that this is really effective is when Vouncy and I were second year medical students, every time, every week we'd study together and we referred to this sheet as the high yield sheet. We would distill a week's worth of lecture materials, like 20, 30 hours of lecture material into like a 10, 20 page document every week.
And I've sent it to some of my friends that are second years. And a lot of people really, really like it, because it's from the perspective of somebody that's new and understands what it's like to be a beginner.
David Reynolds: Excellent. Vamsi?
Vamsi Reddy: I agree with the Akul that it's different for K through 12 versus higher level education. And there's a quote actually perfect. K through 12, I think it needs to be a lot more individualized. There's a quote, I think by Einstein that says "Everybody's a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it's stupid." That's very relevant to K through 12 education where we're kind of in a where everyone is classroom-based and you're ... I don't know a better analogy to put it, but it's we're all in a machine and we're trying to just turn them out thing. Where it almost feels like it's very mechanical. Everyone is in the same class and they have to just meet these requirements to move on to the next class.
And I think given that kind of approach, you lose a lot of individualism in education, K through 12. I think this is the time in your life where you can truly expand on the small things that interest you and catch your attention. And we often put that off until college. Like, okay, in college, a student's going to be independent enough that they'll figure out what they want to do in life. But you have a lot of opportunities in K through 12, in which you're able to do that.
I was listening to a podcast. It was a while ago. I think it was by Sal Khan of Khan Academy. And he has his own school in which students ... it's not only like a move on when you're ready to have a school where you like the grades are fluid in that manner, but it's also a school in which students are truly tailored to as individuals and their interests are truly focused on individually. I think given that in a K through 12 system would be a life-changer, it'd be a system changer for all of education. At secondary education, I think I have to agree with the Akul where there's too much of a focus on the standardized test, especially when it comes to getting into medical school, you need the MCAT. Getting into law school, you need the LSAT.
And there was a episode of revisionist history by Gladwell, where he talked about the LSAT and he talked about how the LSAT is not an indicator at all. They did an entire study where they found the LSAT scores, it's like 80% of your application into getting into law school. If you have a good LSAT score, you can go to a good law school. However, it has no impact on how good of a lawyer you are or no impact on how good of a professional you are afterwards. Given that kind of thing, where we put so much emphasis on this one test to get into the next level of education on any level, whether it be medical school, law, school, business, anything, I think that needs to go down and put more emphasis on the actual practice and the emphasis on who the person is and what they can contribute.
The last thing I would say about secondary education is, there needs to be a more of a focus on the next step of your career. For example, in medical school, even there's the same problem with K through 12, where we're not really individualized until our last year where we're doing interviews and have a sub-I in our own fields. But given an emphasis on what your next step in life is going to be through an undergrad, putting an emphasis on getting into medical school and not putting everything on your plate to figure out how to get into medical school, but trying to help tailor your experience at that school to being a good doctor.
And then in medical school, whether that be miracle doing neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, the medical school tailoring our experience to being better at that field. For example, I think medical schools right now are very conditioned and very, very good at making primary care physicians. Like a lot of our curriculum is designed around making a very good family medicine doctor, internal medicine doctor. I think we have like one or two, eye lectures in our entire medical school. For ophthalmology, we've had almost no exposure to ophthalmological education. And I think that's a deficit in medical education as a whole, is that we're kind of standardizing it to meet these LCME requirements and not trying to individualize it for students who are interested in a particular fields.
David Reynolds: Okay. Let's switch from what could be the optimum situation and focus on great learning experiences. Which learning experience would you point back to, to say that is one of the most memorable ones I have ever had?
Vamsi Reddy: In terms of just learning experiences. I would have to say during our first year of medical school, actually, there were a few learning experiences, which I still remember, where we would break out into these groups. It was during intercessions and we would have fun activities to do. And it was like a breath of fresh air compared to what we would normally sit in lecture and have to memorize all these facts where these are things that we would have to try and imitate what a Trendelenburg gait is, if someone has a damage to a nerve. And that way, like we're applying what we are memorizing into a what we're actually doing and trying to see what the patient would feel. And I think given those opportunities, and even problem-based learning activities in medical school where it's not just about the facts, but it's about applying those facts to clinical knowledge.
I think in terms of learning experiences, I think those were huge. And I think for a singular instance in which, "Wow, this is a moment in which like changed my life, that an educator gave me" was in high school towards the end of my high school, 12th grade. I had to miss school for a few weeks. And I remember coming back and having to make up a test in the hallway. And I was making a test in this hallway and this teacher that had never taught me before, but I just knew by association, came up to me in the middle of the hallway and was like, "Hey, I know you've been gone for a minute. I hope everything's okay. I hope you're doing well. And I hope you're healthy and everything's fine."
And just someone taking the time to notice and come up to me and say something like that, had a huge impact on my life. And I think that's the impact that educators can have on their students' lives is just if they take the time to notice and to take the time to truly be engaged, they can make huge impacts.
Akul Munjal: For me, like Vamsi, I'll divide it up into an experience in medical school and then an experience before that. In medical school, one of the big experiences for that for me was when I was on my orthopedic surgery rotation, I was rotating with a hand surgeon. And this one patient, he had a laceration on his hand. It was sutured up really poorly. We have to go take the sutures out and then we have to wash it out and just suture it back up.
I scrub into the OR, and then he literally hands me the scalpel and he's like, you got this. He just walked me through how to do that. And he spent the time to do that with me. I think that was a really important thing for me. And I think that that was something that I really appreciated. And I think I learned a lot from that situation. Another situation when I was in high school, like I mentioned before, I was in the international baccalaureate program. One of the classes that we had to take when I was in 12th grade was a class called Theory of Knowledge.
Basically it's kind of like a philosophy and ethics class. You learn a lot of different things. And one of the first things that we actually do, it was on our first day of class. We had a discussion on this article called ... It was something like Brandon of that. I don't know if you guys have heard about it, but it's basically the idea that how can we prove that we exist, that it was basically the entire premise of the article. And then after discussing it in our class for a while, you really can't do that. It's a hard thing to do. It's really hard to do. If we can have debates about something as trivial as that, we should have intellectual humility when it relates to other things as well. Because something so fundamental as that we can debate about. We could probably debate about other things as well.
David Reynolds: Those are great examples. Let's continue with our great examples and talk about your favorite teacher, not just your most memorable learning experience. And feel free to identify the teacher by name.
Akul Munjal My favorite teacher was my 10th grade, AP world history teacher. His name was Mr. Gribble. He always made his lectures really interesting. He really tried hard to encompass a lot of the attributes that we ascribed to a good teacher and a teacher that tries to promote engagement. He had good relationships with most of his students. He was my favorite teacher. And then a few years ago, when we were first years in medical school, he came to our white coat ceremony. The fact that he was willing to do that. He had to take the day off to do that. The fact that he was willing to sacrifice one of his days off, to come see me in Augusta really meant a lot to me.
David Reynolds: Is he still teaching somewhere now?
Akul Munjal Yes. He's still an AP world history teacher at Riverwood High School. He also teaches the class that I was previously talking about theory of knowledge. He's added that to his repertoire as well.
David Reynolds: We want to make sure he gets to hear this episode. Vamsi?
Vamsi Reddy: Out of my end, one of the teachers that had a huge impact on my life was Ms. Mary Britt. She was my 11th grade AP literature teacher. And I mean, AP literature was never my strong suit, but I think just the way she engaged us and the way she saw us as individuals and the way she taught me. And there were times where, again, going back to what I said before about seeing the student as not just a student, but seeing them as a human where she would offer to drive me home, if I, my parents going to pick me up until like six or 7:00 PM.
She'd be like, "Hey, I'll just take you home. It's not a huge deal." Things like that. And we kept in touch over the years. And we'd meet up at Starbucks and we'll talk about our lives. And she'll give me advice on not just school and not just my professional engagement, but even when it comes to spirituality or relationships or anything. She's always there to be someone to listen. And someone who was always there for me when I needed someone to lean on.
David Reynolds: Is she still a practicing educator?
Vamsi Reddy: She is no longer teaching at Brookwood High School, which is where I went to high school. I think now she is a professor at UNC Chapel Hill. I'm not exactly sure about the specifics of what she teaches, but I think she has now relocated to Raleigh.
David Reynolds: Enjoyed all those stories from both of you. Is there anything else you would like to add something we failed to uncover?
Akul Munjall: I mean, the only thing I'd like to do is just thank you and thank all the other educators. You guys sacrifice a lot to teach us. I don't think we thank you guys enough. I really, really appreciate all that you guys have done.
Vamsi Reddy: Yeah. And just to piggyback off of what Akul is saying, I just would love to thank everyone who has had that kind of impact. And as me and Akul are aspiring physicians, and I think the word doctor comes from, I don't know if this is correct. I think it's dosori or dorsera or doctora, but it's the Latin root, which basically means to teach. And just as doctors each day have the responsibility to teach their patients about conditions and teach our population and educate them and cure them and make lasting impacts. We often get a lot of credit for that, but teachers had the exact same thing. They make huge impacts on the populations that they teach and just taking the time to truly understand where they're coming from, and be a great teacher and a great mentor can go a long way and change a lot of lives.
David Reynolds: Is there anything else you all would like to share, for example, plug your own podcast? And maybe talk about the Tottenham ready or rapid review app that you've developed.
Akul Munjal Our podcast is Borborygmi food for thought Vamsi Reddy and I are the co-host of that. We have a lot of interesting guests with a lot of interesting insights. And in terms of the Tottenham ready review app that's Vamsi’s forte.
Vamsi Reddy: Yeah. Tottenham ready board review app. This is going into even further education to residency. I worked with one of the chief residents a couple of years ago, Nathan Tottenham. And we work on a neurosurgery board review app, which is again another facet of education. And another seven years down the line in terms of educational. That's a lot of education, but it's, it's a fascinating app that we developed to try and help neurosurgery residents study for their board exams.
David Reynolds: And that's available on the app store, correct?
Vamsi Reddy: Yes. It's available on both the Apple app store and the Android, the Google play store.
David Reynolds: All right. Well, we know what's next for the two of you. That would be residency after year four and then a number of years in that chapter or season of your lives. I just want to thank both of you for offering some great insights, a different perspective and an amazing way to connect even what takes place at extremely high levels of education in medical school, to what takes place in K-12. There are some universal concepts that you have really uncovered today. Thank you both very much.
Vamsi Reddy: Thank you for having us.
Akul Munjal: Thank you so much.
David Reynolds: Thanks for listening today. Find the Lead. Learn. Change. podcast on your search engine, iTunes or other listening app. Leave a rating, write a review, subscribe and share with others. In the meantime, go lead, go learn, go make a change. Go.