Rahul Damania, MD
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
Atlanta, Georgia
Disclosure information not submitted.
Thomas Austin, MD
Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology
Emory University School of Medicine, United States
Disclosure information not submitted.
Jocelyn Grunwell, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor
Emory University/Children's Healthcare of Atlanta Egleston
Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Disclosure information not submitted.
.jpg "Pradip Kamat, MBA, MD, FAAP,FCCM photo")
Pradip Kamat, MBA, MD, FAAP,FCCM
Professor of Pediatrics
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta
Atlanta, Georgia
Disclosure information not submitted.
Title: Integrating Podcasts into Pediatric Critical Care Education: Reach of "PICU Doc On Call" Podcasts
Introduction: Podcasts have become increasingly popular as an audio-medium for free open access medical education (FOAM). Our objective is to evaluate the use of a novel podcast as a tool in pediatric critical care medicine (PCCM) education. We hypothesize the integration of a weekly, web-based podcast can have global impact in disseminating PCCM content.
Methods: We created an educational initiative, “PICU Doc on Call”, and produced 22 podcast episodes from February 2021 to July 2021. “PICU Doc on Call” episodes were weekly audio bytes encompassing key PCCM core topics ranging from airway management, solid organ transplantation, antibiotic selection, etc. Episodes mainly included an expert guest speaker and covered relevant topics by highlighting clinical pearls, board review content, and areas for further enrichment. Podcasts were disseminated on social media platforms such as Twitter, and were freely available for listening on multiple audio-based digital platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon. A concise infographic was posted with each article to summarize the salient learning points from each episode. Data of interest included engagement frequency, geographic reach, and listener behavior. Data was analyzed using a podcast analytics program, Captivate FM.
Results: Each “PICU Doc on Call” podcast had a median duration of 20 [15-30] minutes. Since launching the intervention, a cumulative of 8,040 episodes have been downloaded with the greatest reach (2,076 downloads) in July 2021. In its first 90 days of inception, the podcast ranked within the Top 25 of Apple Podcasts in 5 unique countries. The podcast had a mean of 337 podcast episode downloads per week with an average of 42 unique listeners per week suggesting ongoing user engagement. All-time, the podcast episodes have been downloaded in 71 countries and 45 states within the United States.
Conclusions: Use of remote audio learning in the form of podcasts can globally disseminate PCCM educational content. As a rapidly growing body of information arises, podcasts, such as “PICU Doc on Call,” have a unique reach to a large global audience involved in PCCM. Future work should focus on the impact of podcasts on further knowledge sharing, inter-professional education, and clinical impact in PCCM.