The Future of Learning is Sound: Podcasts in Continuing Healthcare Education

We're getting a little meta here on Write Medicine—this is a podcast episode on the value of podcasts 😉

Did you know that podcasts are increasing in popularity in continuing healthcare education?

As I was researching this episode, I was astounded to see the enormous growth in the number of continuing education podcasts, and the number of clinicians using podcasts as part of their formal and informal learning. As of 2019, the last year for which I could find figures, there were 200 medical podcasts available online covering 19 specialties and almost 14,000 episodes. 

And while many podcasts now offer CME and maintenance of certification credits through organizations like the American College of Physicians and the Society of Hospital Medicine, they are still relatively under-used as a CME format.

On this episode of Write Medicine I talk with Mike Donoghue, an enthusiastic podcast consumer who co-founded  ConveyMED after recognizing that podcasts offer a great way to learn. As he put it (paraphrasing , when your eyes are busy, your mind is free. 

We talk about how the ConveyMED platform delivers a novel podcast experience combining visual images alongside an audio experience, and touch on the challenges in setting up a podcast. ConveyMED partners with medical associations to provide content expertise and guides the design process to ensure a self-directed experience that includes: 

• Conversational style discussions between experts
• Problem-centered content 
• Material that is framed into short, accessible modules 

As Mike explains, 

This is how the mobile generation wants their content. So if you're an association, an academic medical centre, or another content creator and you're not doing podcasts, I would highly encourage you to think about it.

Connect with Mike: mike@conveymed.io

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Transcript

Alex Howson: 0:05

Hello and welcome. I'm your host Alex Howson, and this is Write Medicine, a biweekly podcast that explores best practices in creating content that connects with and educates health professionals. I'm a former nurse and an academic who's now a writer and researcher creating and evaluating education content for health profess. I also teach medical writers how to enrich their continuing medical education writing niche. If your work involves planning, designing, delivering, or evaluating education for health professionals, this podcast is for you.

0:46

Podcasts are increasing in popularity in continuing healthcare education. As I was researching this episode, I was astounded to see the enormous growth in the number of continuing education podcasts, and the number of clinicians using podcasts as part of their formal and informal learning. As of 2019, the last year for which I could find figures, there were 200 medical podcasts available online covering 19 specialties and a total of almost 14,000 episodes. Many podcasts now offers CME and maintenance of certification credits sponsored through organizations like the American College of Physicians and the Society of Hospital Medicine. On this episode of Write Medicine. I talk with Mike Donoghue. A big podcast, consumer who recognizes they're a great way to learn when your eyes are busy, but your mind is free. He cofounded ConveyMed after identifying that podcasts are underused as a resource for CME, despite their popularity. We talk about how the ConveyMed platform delivers a novel podcast experience, combining visual images, alongside an audio experience and the challenges in setting up a podcast. Join us. This episode of Write Medicine is brought to you by WriteCME Pro. A membership driven community that provides skills and scaffolding for medical writers who want to create CME content with confidence. WriteCME Pro includes: Access to expert perspectives to help you build your CME writing skills. A portfolio accelerator to hold space so that you can create stunning samples to show your prospects. Group coaching to help you build foundational and expert knowledge in CME. And monthly office hours so that you can ask questions and get answers from your peers. WriteCME Pro is a community for people like you who are ready to grow their CME writing niche. Doors open January, 2023.

Alex Howson: 2:55

Hello and welcome to Write Medicine. I'm your host, Alex Howson. Mike Donoghue is CEO of Convey Med, a podcast app for medical education, and we're here today to talk about, as you might guess, whether the future of learning is sound. Welcome, Mike.

Mike Donogue: 3:12

Yeah, thanks for having me, Alex. It's great to be here.

Alex Howson: 3:15

good to see you. Well, please tell listeners who you are and what you do.

Mike Donogue: 3:21

Well, I'm on my third career, I like to say. I started my career as a clinician. I was a physical therapist for a decade or so taking care of patients, I remember the. Both the duty and the obligation for continuing education, right? We have a duty to our patients to stay current, and we have an obligation to ourselves and our employers to stay licensed. So I sort of have that as as background context. And then I pivoted and spent 19 years in medical device various roles, marketing R and D with a large orthopedic medical device company. and I was a senior executive there for a few, a few years, and left in 2019 and got the entrepreneur bug. I've always been a big podcast consumer. It's just a great way to, to learn why you're doing something else. I can't remember his name, The CEO of Audible. Great time to listen to a book when your eyes busy, but your mind is free. It's a great time to listen to an audio book. It's a great time to listen to a podcast and that's so true. So anyway, I was, I was always, I've always been a big podcast user. It's our thesis that even though podcasts were very popular, they're under utilized as a resource, as a medium for continuing medical education. And so, I worked with a partner of mine and we decided to, to form Convey Med to solve that very problem. And so here we are now, we're two years into the Convey Med podcast platform. And yeah, that's kind of how I've gotten into to the CME world. So I'm

Alex Howson: 5:03

curious how you kind of made that leap then, from obviously enjoying listening to podcasts, seeing their, their, their value as potential vehicles for education. What was that process of trying to get conveyed off the ground?

Mike Donogue: 5:22

Yeah, so one of the original idea I would tell you came from an experience I had while I was still working in the corporate world. One of the challenges we had was training our sales reps our sales reps in, in medical device, same in pharmaceuticals and in other med tech. They're busy, they're constantly on the road. They spend a lot of time in the car, a lot of time waiting. Positions. But they were also struggling to learn about new technologies that we were rolling out. And as I was listening to podcasts, I was like, Well, maybe we should just create a podcast for them so that they can't hear from leading experts on the given technologies. So during one of our live events that we hosted at our. We had 10 or so faculty members there. So we decided to create a little podcast studio in a conference room, and we invited one faculty member at a time into our conference room and had somebody from my team just interview them about their use of a given product. Why do you use it? When do you use it? What are the indications for use? What are some of the, tips and tricks, et cetera, et cetera, et c these for surgical products. And then we recorded, eight to 10, 25, 30 minute podcast in one day. Kind of packaged them up and rolled them out into the company app that we had, that only our reps had access to, and they loved it. They're like, This is so great. I can listen to it while I'm in the car. I can listen to it while I'm waiting on a customer. They also said, I think my doctors would really like this and I share this with my doctors. I, well, maybe not because it wasn't designed for them. But you know what, that's really a pretty good idea. And so that's sort of how I came to realize that, there's a problem to be solved here. And what are the, what are the roadblocks that we need to be thinking through to bring something like this to. For professionals, for physicians and pharmacists and nps and PAs, and physical therapists and nurses and all the licensed professionals who have, again, as I mentioned earlier, the duty and obligation to stay current for with their, with their clinical practice. Trends.

Alex Howson: 7:34

I, I definitely want to ask about those roadblocks, but I'm, I'm, I'm very struck by thinking of orthopedics in particular and, and any kind of surgical interventions like surgeons and procedural people are very focused on. The tips and tricks of use and application. And so I can see how somebody talking about the work that they're doing and how they're doing it can be a really great way to unpack some of those little quirks that are little modifications that you can make in your surgical technique or your use of a particular. Device or instrument that will kind of give you more bang for your, your buck. So I can, I can see how podcasting fits in really well with that kind of information.

Mike Donogue: 8:23

Multiple experts talking back and forth. That is one of the magic happens in, in podcasting. It's not, It's not the boring didactic lecture and maybe some lectures are not so boring, but some of them are It's the back and forth between experts. It's just the conversation. You're, you're, as a listener, you sort of get to parachute in and listen to a couple of experts talk about something that's probably very relevant to you that you can very much learn from in an informal, conversational, casual way that captures your attention. I mean, if you've been to lots and lots of conferences, as have I, What I've noticed is, you have lecture, lecture, lecture, and then for the last few minutes, that's the question and answer. If you look at the audience during the lecture compared to during the question and answer, the audience perks up during the q and a, especially if there's a pain, especially if there's a debate. Cuz they, there're seeing sort of drama unfold and that's where a lot of, in, in least in my experience, a lot of great learning and application.

Alex Howson: 9:22

Well, there's learn, there's energy in the interaction in a way that often there isn't in a kind of presentation or didactic mode. For sure. You did mention roadblocks. What, what were some of the roadblocks that you kind of encountered in setting up podcasting as a mode of learning?

Mike Donogue: 9:40

Well audio is probably the, the first way in which we learned, I mean, the, the spoken word is, is, is not a, is not. Fact is probably the oldest way in which you've all learned. So that's really not new. More specifically, podcasting for, accredited education. We had to build a platform that that allowed for the compliance requirements, for the accreditation requirements, for the ability to measure completeness and competency and, and things like that. But, but also and this probably goes back to maybe my bias in, in surgical. Education. We needed to be able to have images so that people can images while they listen. Well, you don't really do that on regular podcasting. And so we had to build that capability in. Those are just a few of the examples of why we felt like a podcast app, specifically for medical podcasts. It's easier to find what you're looking for. It includes the images. You can complete all the accreditation requirements, including the quiz all in one. If the, as a former clinician, and it's gotten so much worse now, physicians, nurses, they've never been busier. There's a shortage, aging population. There are a lot of factors at play that, that are causing stress and strain on our practitioners. Well. They just really need a more efficient and accessible way to consume content. What's easier and more accessible than listening to a podcast? You could do it, as I said earlier, you, while your eyes are busy and your mind is. You can be learning.

Alex Howson: 11:13

And so let me ask this then. In that scenario where someone is driving and listening to their podcast, but maybe there are images associated with the, the audio content how easy is it for the, the listener, the learner to kind of go back after the fact and make sure that they retrieve the images that match with the specific audio segment that they're listening to?

Mike Donogue: 11:39

Yeah, that's a good question. The images and the audio are separate from one another, so you can scroll and look at the slides afterwards. We certainly don't advise you to look at images while you're driving. No, you can, you can plug in, Yeah, you can plug in, your, your episode and put it down and listen to it while you're on the road. And then when you get to your destination, if there was something in the slides or in the notes or in the outlines that you wanna go back and. It's a tap of a button and you just scroll and find the information that you want. It's, it's, we separated that out for a reason. Mm-hmm. so we can engage with it because it, there's, there's value in actually actively swiping while you're listening. Cause it almost forces you to pay attention then to just passively have the slides flip for you. So, So there's a way for users to go back and, and check out that inform. So

Alex Howson: 12:28

that active engagement, I think, kind of takes us nicely into, adult learning principles. And how, where, how do you see podcasting in the context of adult learning? Well, in terms of meeting and meeting those principles.

Mike Donogue: 12:45

Yeah, Yeah, sure. So if we, if you, if you, I'm sure many of your listeners are very familiar with a lot of the primary adult learning principles. Some of the work from, from Malcolm Knowles, who's a university professor's, done a lot of research in this area. He's kind of set up different rules and applications for adult learning. Number one for adults learning is, is self-directed. So in other words, they select what they learn. They choose what they learn instead. when we were all in grade school or high school or even college, we were told what we were gonna learn, where were we gonna learn it, when we were gonna learn it. And it's adult learners are learning as self-directed. So we decide what we wanna learn and where we wanna learn and when we wanna learn. And podcasting really is sort of the ultimate and asynchronous learning cuz you, again, you can literally do it almost anywhere. And so it sort of lines up with that aspect of adult learning. Secondly, our learning as adults. Really is formed and developed through, through experience. And the good thing about podcasts as we chatted about previously, is the conversational style lends itself to experiential learning because what you're hearing is the experience of experts talking about their experience. And so I think it, it sort of feeds into that sort of experiential learning. Thirdly, adults Retain information better when it's something that they need to learn about. It's just like when I have to go and learn how change the light bulb on my ninth, 2014 GMC Yukon rear view light. I go to YouTube cuz probably somebody's put that out there and it's great cause I can just tap on YouTube, do a little quick search while I've got it. I can watch it go out and wrestle with my rear view mirror and I'm done. And so that's typical for adult learners, and it's not, it's very typical. For clinicians, they have to learn about something. Maybe clinical practice guidelines. Wow. I wonder if somebody has done a podcast series on clinical practice guidelines for hypertension. What are the late, what does the latest literature say, in terms of medication management, in terms of diet and exercise, except so on and so forth. Those are reps relevant information that people need to learn about, and audio lends itself nicely for that. For adult learners it's also problem centered. Like, I have a problem I have to solve, like my rear rear view light was out. So I need to, find content that matches that problem that I have to solve. What the literature would say is that adult learners retain that information more, readily than they would if it was something that they weren't were dealing with at that moment. So, for example, A difficult case if you're a physician, you have a difficult case. You're not exactly sure how you want to handle that case. Well, what if somebody has already done a podcast on something very similar to that? You can listen to that podcast on your drive home, whether or not it's CME and you have to take a quiz. And all that is really, is probably not as important as the fact that I needed to learn about this specific problem that will help me with this specific patient. And that's one of the sort of the vision that we have for. Podcasting is if we had a library of cases from experts that just lived out there that you could easily search and find, it could be a point of reference or a point of care tool for clinicians dealing with very specific problems with very specific patients. So those are some of the ways in which, we would, we would say that mobile audio or, or podcasting lines up beautifully with the, the main adult learning principles, and it's a great medium. Again, it's for for busy burned out tire clinicians.

Alex Howson: 16:20

And you've talked a little bit about about these, about the circumstances under which clinicians and learners are listening to audio content, listening to, to podcasts, what trends, And I know that you work with a number of different partners, so I do wanna ask a question about that. But what trends are you seeing in terms of how clinicians are using podcasts for learning and, and cME and CE in particular. And is that accredited education? So there's, I guess there's two questions there. So let's start with the first one. What are the, the sort of trends that you're seeing in terms of how clinicians are

Mike Donogue: 16:59

using podcasts? Yeah. It's interesting if you look at the demographics of people who was in the podcast, they tend to be with exception of me cuz I'm an old. Younger millennial, Young Mobile. The mobile generation is, we sort of have labeled them, right? That's who listens to a lot of podcasts. So some of the most popular podcasts that we've produced and are working with our partners is specifically for residents and more specifically for residents who are preparing to take their, whatever BO Prep or training exam that they have to take to move to the next step in the residency or to move into, into practice. and they have, we have found that, combining mobile audio with case reviews or slides, or links to videos, that that may be supplemental to whatever they're learning, whatever particular topic they're learning, the residents love that because it is a great way to supplement whatever education. Whatever learning strategy that they're choosing to employ, would that be through, online or good old fashioned, textbooks, They really do. This generation really does love the, the, the mobile audio version of that cuz they, they want all their content on a mobile device. So we've seen a lot of people doing a lot of interest in that and that's not accredited cme. Residents don't need cme, but they're very interested in, in that kind of content or for non-accredited CME content. The other is reviews of the literature, journal club type podcasts, what are the top, One of the best se series of podcasts we did was a series called Game Changers. And what the Game Changers was is an they we were interviewing leading clinicians. We asked them, what is the study that you didn't do, Not a paper that you wrote, but maybe a paper one of your colleagues wrote that changed your practice and why go and what a great question. Lot of great nuggets of, of information and those podcasts have been very, very popular. So, being able to stay current with the literature and hearing not just the, the methods and the results of the paper. But you know what inspired me to. Look at this problem. What further research is there to to look at after we've looked at this problem in this, in this way, to further the research in this area? Physicians and other clinicians are really, have a duty to stay current with the literature. There's just so much content it's hard to keep up with. So short little sure views of papers also seem very popular.

Alex Howson: 19:38

And you've talked, you've talked about physicians, residents, fellows physiotherapists sales hips. What about nurses? Are you seeing a kind of market or a, a need there for audio content for nurses? Is that one of the kind of markets that you address?

Mike Donogue: 19:59

We haven't started working with any of the nursing organizations just yet, but I absolutely believe cuz nurses. As busy as anybody. There's, it's well known that there's a nursing shortage and, let's be honest, I think sometimes nurses sort of run the hospital. They have their duty and obligations just like every other clinician, just like I did to learn. So we definitely think that there's a, there's a big opportunity for, for nursing education.

Alex Howson: 20:25

Let's talk a little bit about process and content development. You, you work with partners, so can you talk a little bit about. The kinds of partners that you work with and what their expectations are for for audio content?

Mike Donogue: 20:41

Yeah. It's funny, it's evolving because I, I would tell you that, that this is, even though podcasting is not brand new, it's relatively new to, to healthcare. So we work with, for example, medical associations and medical associations have done a really nice job pivoting. Live events to, to virtual, maybe now doing hybrid, doing a lot more webinars and so forth. I think maybe one area that they're starting to really get into is, is podcasting. And so some of the association partners that we've worked with have, have noticed that there are more people downloading and listening to their podcast than watching any of their webinars or engaging with any of their online content. Why? Probably because the content is so easily accessible, they can do it wherever, whenever they like. From a content development standpoint, we've been sort of experimenting with what are the formats, what are the, the links who is the target audience and try to measure, where we can find sort of that sweet spot. And it does appear that, 15 to 30 minutes is, is the preferred. So that's good to know. So if we have an hour long podcast, we might split that into two. We might even split that into three or four episodes. Right. But we'll be intentional about, doing that with, based on the, the, the subject matter that we're dealing with. So we did, for example a podcast mini series on managing complex deformities. Of the lower extremity. And so there was a four part series. Each were 30 minutes. We recorded them all at one time cuz it was the same faculty who talked about it. They split the subject matter into four sections, almost like they would running a conference. But we just turned that into a podcast. And so working with associations, if you frame it in, we're just really creating a minicourse like you do all the time or a section of a conference or a section in a. Except we're gonna record it maybe virtually or we could record it live, whichever's more convenient. But it's really the same thing. And trying to set up not just lecture, lecture, lecture, question and answer, but creating that sort of magic where there's discussion between between experts. So as I mentioned, like the game changer series is, is a popular way to, a nice twist on reviewing the literature cases. Case presentations. Again, physicians are often taught in medical school is, is case based. And that's, it starts maybe with an x-ray or starts with with an image, or it starts with a set of lab results or a quick patient history. And those tend to be very useful ways to learn and lend themselves nicely to, to podcasts. So those are some of the things we're doing with our association partners. We work with academic medical centers, CME providers that are academic medical centers. We've rebroadcast some of their conferences and put them in podcast format. It's a good way to get enduring material for some of the great content from some of the leading experts that they invite to their conferences. Whereas before, they would give a amazing presentation and then poof, it's gone. We can help them put in a, in a format that is easily accessible for, for the masses. So those are just some, a few examples. We tend to mostly work with associations and academic medical centers. We have a few sort of independent creators who are, who are creating content with us. But that's really the, the way in which we envision this relationship.

Alex Howson: 24:20

And can you speak a little bit to the content creation process? I mean, is that being driven at the partner end or at your end, or is it more of an interaction between, the, the two partners or how does that work?

Mike Donogue: 24:34

Yeah, it's, it's probably more of an interaction. But we do rely on the expertise of our content partners. We're not the experts in the. We are certainly willing and able to share our experience with the other partners that we have on what has worked and what hasn't worked. But when it comes to the content, we really do have to rely upon the expertise of the content creators themselves. Where, where our guidance comes in is in, in, in and reframing what they're used to doing, which is we, we have an hour long webinar. We're gonna have somebody speak for an. Let's maybe mix that up a little bit, have some q and a or invite multiple people to the discussion. Maybe there's a 10 minute talk presentation followed by 10 minutes of discussion, and then somebody else gives it a presentation discussion. So you sort of break it up. Part of our, the adult learning principles that we didn't mention is our attention spans start to fade as we age. And if you do anything more than 12 to 15 minutes with adults, you're gonna lose 'em many cases. If you don't sort of reset. The the experience a little bit. And so those are some of the guidance that we can provide. But yeah, we really do rely on the experts to, to create the content.

Alex Howson: 25:46

And of course not all education needs to be accredited, although obviously clinicians are always looking for sources for accredited education so that they can gain their credits. And of course not all education needs to be accredited in order for it to be effective and meaningful, but is accredited education an area that you potentially see growth in for podcasts?

Mike Donogue: 26:16

Oh, most, most certainly. Most of our content, well a lot of our exclusive partners, the are creating accredited content. I think we always sort of strive to have the content be accreditable whether or not we go through the process of accreditation or not, just because we want this to, this information to come from trusted sources. We have 180 podcasts on our app, their only medical podcasts. You're not gonna find Joe Rogan or ESPN or anything like that. We want the content that that comes from Convey Med to be from the trusted sources, peer reviewed caliber content, whether it's accredited or not, is up to the the creator, frankly. Cuz we don't accredit the content, we're just distributed, but our platform makes it easy to distribute accredited content and so yeah, we most certainly think there's a growth opportunity there. For the delivering of the distribution of compliant, easy, accessible, accredited content for physicians and, and NP/PAs, you name it.

Alex Howson: 27:19

And presumably given that you have the capacity to upload images and not only audio content, you. Could assess outcomes associated with accredited education through surveys or, or other means on your platform?

Mike Donogue: 27:37

We do. Yeah, we definitely do. We can do a pre-test and of course we do protests and evaluations as well. Which in which actually raises in other interesting format that we're sort of keen to try, which is almost like the quiz bank idea where, you send out pretest. Answer the pretest question, you're not gonna be allowed to listen to the episode until you do. We're not gonna tell you the answer. Listen to the podcast. View the images, if, if, if it goes with it, and then answer the question again. And did you learn something? Did you get the right answer on the backside quiz, banks are a great way, particularly for residents and other students to, to, to prepare for. In training exams and their board preparation examination. So we're super keen to try that with the partner. And we have the capacity to do that for sure. The other interesting idea that, that has been passed around is this idea of the flipped classroom model, right? So mm-hmm. let's have a series of podcasts that learners would engage in. We can ask questions, whether they be pre-test, post-test, or. During that engagement, share that with the creator, the content creator, so that when they have their live event, they have an understanding of who's coming, how much information are they coming with, what sort of background and experience do they have in the area with which we're providing this educational, live, educational experience, but we're using the value of asynchronous learning in podcast format in this case of. To really fine tune our live event. So we're we had a few, a few of our partners looking at that as, as a potential option. We think that's a pretty interesting, unique way to deliver mobile audio on our platform.

Alex Howson: 29:30

Yeah, absolutely. And you, you talked a little bit about the learning experience. In a podcast. Are there any other aspects about the learning experience that you think are important in the sort of podcast format? know, What makes for a good learning experience? You've talked about some of these things. I just wonder if there are other aspects there.

Mike Donogue: 29:54

Right. Yeah. If we go back to the adult learning principles and the sort of the need to know and the problem centered. You, I can envision a podcast that has a, as is about a particular subject. It has the slides or notes that go with it, or references that, that go with it, that you can download. It has link to a video if it's a, for example, a surgical question that shows you a surgical technique. So you've got a multimedia experience at your, fingertips really based on a specific problem that you wanna learn about. I, I think that would, that's a way in which you can use the convenience of mobile audio to sort of wet the learner's appetite and then link them to other pieces of content, even in other mediums. Could be online, it could be, sign up for this live, live conference if you wanna learn more to, to really firm up the learning for that particular subject. We don't, we're not the end all, be all. Podcasting is a great tool, but we also want it to be jumping off point for access to other learning opportunities and learning mediums to really help the learner at the end of the day.

Alex Howson: 31:11

It's so interesting how you see podcasts as a kind of nodal point that integrates other. Types of content for a really kinda well-rounded learning experience. I find that really interesting.

Mike Donogue: 31:25

That's a great way to put it. And I'm gonna steal that from you.

Alex Howson: 31:28

You, you can steal that. Just to kinda wrap up, are there other things that you would really like listeners to know about, especially if they're thinking about creating podcast content for healthcare education?

Mike Donogue: 31:42

It's interesting if you want to create a podcast and really get into podcast education, to some extent it's a commitment. If you think you don't wanna just launch a podcast, so many, there are 4 million podcasts on Spotify, 4 million, and it's growing at, and that's just one platform. That's just one platform. This, the biggest platform for podcast now is Spotify, 4 million podcasts, and it's growing like crazy. What that shows you, if you dig into the daily a little bit more specifically, is there. A fair number, probably hundreds of thousands that are very popular, and there's 3.9 million that are dead. Basically, that somebody did a podcast, they did it for two, two months, three months, six months. You're a podcaster. You know this. You have to stay consistent. You have to be committed to doing that because your audience. Is you wanna sort of build, build a habit within your audience. You want your audience to say, On every other Tuesday, I can listen to the Right Medicine podcast. Right? That's how you build your listenership. That's how you build your audiences through that consistency. So it's not a one time event. Right. Those are some of the things that we have learned. And then, promoting it and all the other tools to, to get the word out are, are also very important. But, if you're an association, if you're thinking about mobile audio as a tool, I think it's also important to look at our demographic very closely. That is leading healthcare now and we'll be leading healthcare in the very near future. It's the young clinician. The highest percentage of healthcare professionals now are. Millennials gen and not, not they're, they're young and it's, it's not so much in the physician space yet, but it's certainly in nursing and in NP/PA and in other allied health professionals, it is pharmacy and other example. It's going to change in, in medicine though, they're gonna, older physicians are going to retire. The mobile generation is. This is how they want their content. So really, if you're an association or if you're an academic medical center, or if you're another content creator and you're not doing podcasts, I would highly encourage you to think about it and we would be happy to help you. Whether you wanna become a partner of Convey meds or not, I'd be happy to help you. Just provide some guidance or some advice on, on what our partners have done just because to see the medium really take off because I do think it is for our. Let's call them our healthcare heroes because they are our heroes, particularly if as they've survived the pandemic. And, and it's a learned profession and they're really busy. Our mission is to give them something of high caliber that's easy for them to access, that's convenient. And the best content comes from experts. And those experts tend to live in the academic medical center world and the association world with some of the other, big leading content providers. And so if you're thinking about starting a podcast channel and want to think about starting a convey channel, We would love to talk to you.

Alex Howson: 34:42

It's interesting, we didn't really talk about pharmacists, but pharmacists are so active in terms of information exchange and they're always educating each other. I can see how audio content would be a great fit for pharmacists in particular.

Mike Donogue: 34:56

The Pharmacy podcast network. And. Todd Yuri leads that organization, and he is, he has created a community of around 40 or so content creators. They're all pharmacists. They all have different areas of expertise and specialty and target audiences. And and so now we're working with him, with Todd and with many of his creators to create specific education or CE content for pharmacists. There are so many. I'm learning as as we go. Thank God we're all learning something new every. There's so many different specialties in pharmacy, know, Right. Special pharmacy and hospital and pharmacogenomics and all these different things. And there's opportunities for, and pharmacists are busy too. You, we've all stood in line of the pharmacy. They're run like crazy. And so yeah, you're right. I think they're, there's a great group to, to work with and a lot of opportunity for education.

Alex Howson: 35:54

Well, thank you Mike Donoghue for sharing all the different ways in which the future of learning is sound.

Mike Donogue: 36:03

I love that too. The future of learning is sound. I may borrow that too, Alex All right. We can talk

Alex Howson: 36:08

about

Mike Donogue: 36:08

that. Yeah. It was great to be with you.

Alex Howson: 36:13

Podcasts offer a form of asynchronous and flipped classroom learning to continuing healthcare education. They're convenient. They let learners listen to while commuting to work, exercising or doing something else. And they foster a sense of community among listeners. Studies show that learners value podcasts for their portability. Efficiency. And combined educational and entertainment value, and they see podcasts as an enjoyable way to keep up to date in a low key, low stress context. And podcasts offer what some researchers describe as a form of pedagogy that reflects back to an oral tradition of learning in medicine and healing. And as Mike notes in our conversation aligns with the work of Malcolm Knowles who argued that learning should be delivered in formats that empower adult learners to plan their own content in ways that are directly relevant to their professional practice. In short, the future of learning is sound. Thanks for listening. See you next time.