Podcast shines light on ‘Humans of OUWB’
If the adage “everyone has a story” is true, two medical students from Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine are intent on finding those tales that are connected to the school and sharing them with the world.
“Humans of OUWB” is a podcast created by Dina Abdo and Maidah Raja, both rising fourth-year medical students. The podcast launched in late 2020, and can be found just about anywhere podcasts are available, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
The latest episode was released this week and features their classmate, Monique Waltman. Previous episodes have featured OUWB Founding Dean Robert Folberg, M.D., Jason Wasserman, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Foundational Medical Studies, and a custodian named Sebastian who works on the first and second floors of OUWB’s O’Dowd Hall.
Abdo said the show’s origin can be traced to a desire to remain connected to the OUWB community during COVID-19, and do so in a creative way that helps “rejuvenate this other side of my brain.”
“We felt this overwhelming sense of not getting enough closure,” she said.
“We didn’t get to say goodbye to O’Dowd (Hall), we didn’t get to say goodbye to our classmates…and we had just spent a year together constantly seeing each other, faculty, and staff.”
Abdo said those feelings prompted her and Raja to “reimagine the community while we’re still apart.”
(Only partial stories are posted here with hopes to provide a brief overview and introduction to my most recent work. The full version of this story may be found on the OUWB website here.)
