Educating medical residents through podcasts developed by PharmD students

Podcasts are increasingly popular in education due to their accessibility, portability, and scheduling flexibility. Pharmacy students often interact with resident physicians during advanced pharmacy practice experiences, but few studies have evaluated their ability to teach medical residents about pharmacotherapy concepts or how these interactions might impact their own development. We sought to evaluate the efficacy of pharmacy student-created podcasts in two areas: the ability to increase medical resident understanding of selected medical topics and the effect on the pharmacy student's confidence in teaching.

Eight fourth-year pharmacy students created enhanced podcasts and assessment questions on a medical topic. The assessment questions were split randomly into pre- and post-podcast assessments to be given to residents. The assessment quizzes and podcast comprised content modules that were delivered to consenting medical residents at two week intervals. Pharmacy student confidence was evaluated with pre- and post-experience surveys, which were administered before they created the podcast and after they viewed the aggregate results of resident assessments of their podcast.

Overall, 79.3% (23/29) of residents participated with an average of 44% participation on each module. Resident knowledge increased as evidenced by the overall aggregate score, significantly improving from 36% prior to podcasts to 76% following podcasts (p=0.001). When rated on a 1-10 scale, average pharmacy student confidence in teaching their topic also significantly increased from 5.63 to 8.00 (p=0.041).

Podcasts are an effective method for medical residents to learn from pharmacy students and may also improve pharmacy students' confidence in their abilities.