Collab, Virtualize, Democratize: A Conversation With the Founders of CardioNerds

Abstract

CardioNerds began in 2019 as a cardiology podcast founded by Amit Goyal, MD, MAS, and Daniel Ambinder, MD, while training as general cardiology fellows at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Johns Hopkins Hospital, respectively. It has since transformed into an online, multimodal, cardiovascular education platform. When recruitment for graduate medical education went virtual during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020, CardioNerds collaborated with the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Fellows in Training (FIT) section and invited cardiovascular fellowship programs nationwide to present their culture and training opportunities to applicants while discussing challenging cases. Still in COVID-19, Drs Goyal and Ambinder launched the CardioNerds Case Reports, the CardioNerds Academy (educating trainees on how to create digital educational products), the Healy Honor Roll of engaged cardiovascular fellowship programs, podcast series such as the Braunwald Chronicles, and other organic, bidirectional educational programs. CardioNerds increasingly became a communal platform with a growing family of contributors and a place to pair content creation with personal and professional development. Building on this ethos, CardioNerds partnered with the principal investigators of a randomized controlled heart failure trial to improve enrollment during COVID-19. With the goal of pairing equitable recruitment with FIT development, CardioNerds is credited in part with enhancing enrollment efficiency, participant diversity, and training for academic careers. We talk here with the CardioNerds founders about asynchronous medical education, social cognitive learning theory in virtual platforms, peer review, conflicts of interest, and their goal to democratize formal cardiovascular training.

Impact of the Febrile Podcast and Learning Resource as an Infectious Diseases Education Platform

“…Access to the voices of experts in ID was highly valued, and respondents also described feelings of excitement, enthusiasm, and encouragement about being a member in the field of ID. The ability for online communities of practice and digital education platforms to provide a place for personal and professional development has been appreciated in similar projects outside ID [ 5 , 8 , 25 ]. In this study, we also share the crucial involvement of the ID community in this initial period of Febrile.…”

The ID Digital Institute: Building a digital education toolset and community

“…[32][33][34] The curriculum structure was also informed by insight from leaders of other pre-existing health professions digital education curricula. 2,12,27,35 The intended audience of the curriculum are members in post-…”

“…have been developed to help equip healthcare professionals with the necessary tools and frameworks to engage effectively. 2,12,[22][23][24][25][26][27] In 2023, we launched the ID Digital Institute (IDDI), a digital education program with a curriculum designed to provide healthcare professionals in infectious diseases (ID) with the skills to appraise, create, curate, and integrate digital education into their careers.…”

Bridging the Digital Divide

“…We believed that our application of digital tools to promote CVD prevention among young adults would be further amplified by creating instructional content for health care professionals guiding them in this space. We collaborated with CardioNerds, 10 a popular multimodality digital education platform, to make use of their podcast platform to create a series targeted at health care professionals to understand and harness digital health innovations in the care of patients. In doing so, we aimed to amplify the digital bridge connecting clinicians and patients.…”