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Thursday, October 22, 2009

This Sunday (October 25): 'Rounds' to go inside The House of God

This Sunday, Radio Rounds heads to Chicago! We will be in the Windy City for our Regional AMSA (American Medical Students Association) Conference, and we will conclude our three-week "Experience of Residency" series on Sunday afternoon at 12 p.m. ET (live streaming audio on the blog).

Our special guest will be Samuel Shem (left), author of the iconic novel The House of God. Shem -- a pen-name for Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Psychatrist Dr. Stephen Bergman -- wrote The House of God in the late 1970s, and the novel has become arguably the most well-known book ever written about the medical profession. In it, Shem uses humor and brutal honesty to portray the experience of medical residents during their internships at a well-known Boston-based hospital -- the grueling life, lack of sleep, and the ups and downs of spending all their time in the hospital.

The House of God was in fact named by the British medical journal The Lancet as one of the two most important American medical novels of the 20th century, alongside Sinclair Lewis' Arrowsmith.

Shem is also the author of Mount Misery and the recently released The Spirit of the Place and is an accomplished playwright as well.

We look forward to the show and hope you can join us to hear our conversation with Samuel Shem! We'll also be talking about our weekend in Chicago at the AMSA conference! Again, live streaming audio will be available here on the blog at 12 p.m. ET, and the podcast of the show will be available on our iTunes page next week.
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Meet the Hosts

Avash Kalra is a medical student at the Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University. He is a 2005 graduate of Cornell University, where he majored in Psychology. Before starting medical school, Avash worked for one year at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, Maryland, where he conducted research on lifespan extension. He then worked for one year as a clinical research coordinator in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Avash was born in England and lived there for 11 years. He spends his free time working as a staff writer for an NCAA hockey website. Over time, he has developed unhealthy obsessions with college hockey, poker, and the Dave Matthews Band. His favorite television shows include Lost, 24, Dexter, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. He is now an avid reader... of medical textbooks. He frequently points out that he has "the perfect face for radio." And -- as you'll discover -- he likes puns.

Lakshman Swamy is a medical student at the Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University. He is a 2005 graduate of the College of Wooster in Wooster, OH, where he self-designed the Neuroscience major. Before joining medical school, Lakshman worked for two years in the Trapp lab at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation as a lab technician working with multiple sclerosis.

Lakshman is a young gentleman in the MD/MBA program at Wright State, and accordingly, his favorite character on Scrubs is Dr. Kelso. He has an eclectic taste in music, loves audiobooks -- especially mysteries -- and watches 24, M*A*S*H, and Battlestar Galactica. Yes, two of those shows have run their final season -- he is also constantly behind the times. He has NO idea what he wants to do with his life, but he is sure it will involve turning down the position of Surgeon General for bigger and better things.

Shamie Das is an MD/MBA dual degree student at the Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University. He graduated from Emory University in 2004 as a dual major in Biology and Sociology. He went on to earn his Masters Degree in Public Health in 2007 from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. As a graduate student, he also performed bench research in Molecular and Cell Biology at the Emory University School of Medicine. In his free time during college, Shamie volunteered as an EMT-Intermediate and went on to become certified as a Paramedic.

Shamie was born in England and soon after moved to the US. In his free time he enjoys photography, traveling and fine cuisine. A few of his life goals are to visit every continent and climb Everest. An avid extremist, Shamie enjoys leaping out of perfectly good airplanes, white water rafting and jumping headfirst into gorges. Recently engaged, he also spends countless hours on the phone with his fiancée. His favorite authors include Hemingway, Frost, and Crichton (and of course Robbins). Television is a thing of the past in his current life, but occasionally he still watches PBS and listens to NPR and (of course) Radio Rounds.