Attending Physician's Attitudes Toward Podcasting as a Source of Medical Education: An Exploratory Study

People are increasingly consuming information on-demand. Podcasting is a growing medium for education in an on-demand world. There is a paucity of data on podcasting as a means of continuing medical education (CME) for attending physicians.

The authors performed an exploratory survey of a convenience sample of listeners to a Pediatric Hospital Medicine podcast to learn about their attitudes regarding podcasting. A 17-question survey consisting of demographic data, attitudinal questions, and qualitative questions was administered electronically in February 2018.

At the time of the survey, the 12 podcast episodes were downloaded 17,288 times, with 162 CME credits being issued. Of 129 respondents, 75.2% were attendings. The majority agreed the podcast was of "high educational value" and was of equal or better educational value as medical journals or national conferences. Qualitative content analysis revealed listeners valued the convenience of the podcast, and community-based hospitalists felt the podcast connected them to the broader hospitalist community.

Our respondents found podcasting to be a beneficial and convenient learning method. The ability to apply for CME credit was not a major motivation for listening. Further research is needed to investigate more objective outcomes and assess attitudes of a random sampling of physicians as opposed to a self-selected sample.