Ep 068 – Academic Hospital Medicine with Dr. Emily Silverman

Dr. Silverman is an academic hospitalist at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.

Dr. Silverman completed her undergraduate degree at Brown University in 2009 where she majored in History of Art and Architecture, briefly flirting with a career in the art world before heading down the pre-med path. She then completed her medical degree at Johns Hopkins University in 2014, followed by her residency in internal medicine residency at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 2017.

In addition to practicing hospitalist medicine, Dr. Silverman is the host and creator of The Nocturists, a live medical storytelling event and podcast for physicians and other healthcare providers. You can think of it as medicine’s version of the Moth. She is also the author of a series of prose poems about her experiences as a medical resident, many of which are published in the The Examined Life Journal of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. Her writing is animated by a deep-seated curiosity about science, human nature, and what it means to live and die well.

In addition to her podcast’s website at thenocturnists.com, Dr. Silverman can be found at her personal website at emilysilverman.com, as well as on twitter as @ESilvermanMD

Please enjoy with Dr. Emily Silverman!

Time Stamps

Intro to Dr. Silverman + intro to storytelling [3:36]
Part 1: “Tell us about your specialty” [22:25]
- Routines, patients and outcomes [30:50]
- Biggest challenges / prediction for the next 10-20 years [58:18]
- Most exciting / most mundane [1:04:04]
- One thing you wish you had known [1:14:29]
- One thing to consider in earnest [1:16:37]
- Specific questions about academic hospital medicine [1:18:33]
- Resources [1:22:29]
Part 2: “Tell us about how you decided your specialty was right for you“ [1:24:04]
Part 3: “Give us advice for long-term career planning irrespective of your choice of specialty” [1:31:58]
Book recommendations [1:39:44]