We Need to Teabrief – A Comedic and Cathartic Med Podcast

alecia1

Say hello to Bells, Nikki and Noa; three medical students who come together to drink tea and debrief over the week that was - or, TeaBrief. Join them every Monday fortnight as they vent, laugh and cry over all things life and med school. Subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

We sat down for a cuppa and a chat with the team to hear all about their up and coming podcast.

How did the podcast come about?
Nikki: It’s a funny story. I was in hotel quarantine Baricinix 2 mg Bells and I were venting about med and our weeks. We couldn’t stop laughing and cringing over the stories we were telling each other, and we thought, ‘we should make a podcast!’ This was at 10:00pm and we were very delirious at this point, so naturally we decided to get Noa in on it as well.

We called her up and she was not impressed. But she basically said ‘okay, fine, as long as you guys do most of the work.’

Noa: We found that we were having conversationst amongst ourselves anyway. A lot of the conversations were not ones that you typically have in the open, and that you would broadcast, but they're really important conversations to be had. We thought normalising these conversations would help others realise that the highs and low they experienced at placement was really... normal.



Has TeaBriefing been helpful?
Nikita:  Debriefing with med students about what happens on placement is so important in the sense that it reminds us that we’re not alone in our experiences. It's shared, we're all going through the same things together and we're venting about it while being a bit vulnerable. And if we’re vulnerable with each other and ultimately our listeners, maybe they’ll know that it's okay to be vulnerable as well.

Noa: I think a lot of the content or the things that we talk about are very relatable. Everyone will fail a procedural skill, or go through the headaches of research. And there's just a lot of dumb stuff that happens on placement. You know, you joke about it with your friends and I think it's nice to listen back to it and know that other people are experiencing that too.

Bells: Especially if you're in lockdown in Melbourne or Sydney and you don't really see too many people too often anymore; you don't have those chances to debrief about everything. It's nice to hear that other people are going through the same stuff as well.

How does TeaBrief differ from the debriefs in a clinical setting?
Noa: These are genuine conversations that we have. They're not scripted whatsoever. They're raw. They're completely and totally just how we're feeling at that moment.

With structured debriefs that you get in a clinical setting, you often don't have that opportunity to be raw and real. You're told it's okay to be feeling what you're feeling, but you actually don't get given the opportunity to feel that. TeaBrief is just laying it bare.

Nikki: And it’s not even that you’re not given the opportunity to debrief, you are, but you don’t feel like you want to express your emotions or what was going through your head with your consultants and fellow colleagues. You don't always want them knowing what you're thinking. Especially because we’re not permanent parts of the team; we come and go very quickly and don’t have the chance to connect with the team properly.