Continuing Medical Education in an On-Demand World: Is Podcasting the Netflix of Medical Education?

Abstract

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.

Health Care Professional and Caregiver Attitudes Toward and Usage of Medical Podcasting: Questionnaire Study

“…Of note, the listed social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube) lack the quality indicators our study’s participants cited as most important when they seek educational podcasts, such as accuracy, transparency, and a qualified host. This is an interesting contrast to prior surveys that have identified a high percentage of health professionals who use social media for education [ 27 ]. Differences may be due to the demographic surveyed (eg, attending physicians versus graduate medical trainees) or survey wording that precluded the consideration of subconscious consumption of information on social media.…”

Learning Through Listening: A Scoping Review of Podcast Use in Medical Education

“…Several articles demonstrated the international spread of medical education podcasts, with some podcasts reaching over 100 countries. 57,62 Podcast use may not be consistent across countries. A study of urology trainees found North American urology trainees listened to health care-focused podcasts more often than did trainees from South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.…”

“…We assessed 161 full-text articles for eligibility and excluded 99 (see Figure 1). A total of 62 articles met inclusion criteria, 2,3,5,6,13–70 the earliest of which was published in 2007. 52 A summary of the outcomes of each of the included articles is available in Supplemental Digital Appendix 2 at http://links.lww.com/ACADMED/B218.…”

Educational Podcast Impact on Student Study Habits and Exam Performance

“…[15][16][17] Few reports on podcasts in pediatrics have been published and none have evaluated educational outcomes. [18][19][20][21] We examined how typical use of an educational podcast impacted students' learning during pediatrics clerkship. We surveyed students' study habits, assessed perceptions of the podcast, and compared users' and nonusers' scores on the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) pediatrics examination.…”