The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing society to re-evaluate how it educates learners of all levels, from medical students to faculty. Travel restrictions and limits on large public gatherings have necessitated the cancelling of numerous regional and national conferences as well as local grand rounds at many academic centers. Podcasting provides a potential solution for providing CME in a safe, socially distant way as an alternative to these more traditional CME sources for health care professionals. Using a popular CME podcast for pediatric hospitalists as an example, this article describes the many advantages that podcasting poses over more traditional CME methods, outlines some of the methodological and technological considerations that go into creating a high-quality podcast, and describes how podcasting can be leveraged during a global pandemic. Finally, we identify areas for further research regarding podcasting, including effective ways to virtually replace the more social and community building aspects of traditional conferences and grand rounds.

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Pediatric patients with anorexia nervosa and atypical anorexia nervosa may present to hospitals with significant vital sign instability or serum laboratory abnormalities necessitating inpatient medical hospitalization. These patients require specialized care, numerous resources, and interdisciplinary collaboration during what can be a protracted admission. Recent evidence informs areas in which care can be accelerated, and published protocols from major children’s hospitals are helpful roadmaps to creating a streamlined hospitalization. In our narrative review, we focused on 3 key areas: (1) implementation of a rapid nutritional rehabilitation program; (2) assessment and management of the refeeding syndrome; and (3) early integration of psychoeducation and therapeutic interventions during inpatient hospitalization. A practical review of the literature in these 3 areas will give concrete, actionable information to pediatric hospitalists as they care for young people with restrictive eating disorders.

Podcasting, like many new technologies, provides the opportunity to make learning more convenient and efficient. Since gaining popularity as a medium in the early 2000s, there is a growing number of podcasts in the medical field that target the lay public, patients, and health care professionals. 1 In 2018, the Edison Report stated that 44% of Americans had listened to a podcast in their lifetime, and 26% listened in the past month. 2 These percentages have consistently risen since 2008. 2 Regular podcast listeners tend to have an advanced degree, full-time employment, and a higher annual household income than the general US population. 2 The Edison Report also states that podcasting takes advantage of commute time, and as per the US Census Bureau, the average American commute is 26 minutes each way. 2 Given this reported average listener profile, physicians seem ideal targets for podcast-based education. Podcasts are currently used in a variety of ways for medical education. The earliest adopters of medical education podcasting were emergency physicians and intensivists. 3 Residents have been quick to adopt podcasts as part of their medical education toolbox because they tend to be younger and more likely to use technology. Mallin et al 4 showed that residents in emergency medicine preferred podcasts to any other traditional teaching tool, including textbooks and Google. Purdy et al 5 found that 90% of surveyed residents used podcasts as an educational resource. Podcasting provides an opportunity to transform the landscape of medical education by allowing physicians to learn on their own terms, through a medium that can fit into any lifestyle or schedule. We suspect the popularity of podcasting for medical education will continue to grow as podcasts become ingrained as a source of information among the current generation of trainees.