When commuting, working on chores, or waiting in line, listening to podcasts will keep you productive and will unleash hours you never knew you had. Here are three of my top pics to get you started.
- Goljian (late MS1-MS2)
Time listening to Poppy is time well-spent. You’ll pick up lots of high-yield pathology information and you’ll hear some old-school Brooklyn English. I previously covered this podcast here. Here’s the link to the audio files… …and a backup in case the first one goes down.
2. Emergency Medicine Cases (EM Cases) (MS3-MS4)
As an MD/PhD student in grad school, I’m always hunting for ways to stay on top of my clinical knowledge so the transition back to med school isn’t too rough. EM Cases gives a good mix of “Best Case Ever” episodes with bone-chilling tales from the ED combined with longer overviews of a topic. They bring in top guests from all over Canada, and have excellent discussions and quality production.
3. The Undifferentiated Medical Student (TUMS)
As the match loomed closer, rising MS4 Ian Drummond was feeling overwhelmed with the decision about which of the 160+ specialties to pursue. He took some time to get an MBA and think about it. To help him out, he is on a quest to interview a practitioner from all 160+ specialties.
Ian sits down with physicians from tons of specialties on his show. Most of them practice at Case Western (his home school), though he has been branching out and recording interviews with top physicians and surgeons from around the country. His interviews follow a well-prescribed format in which he asks questions culled from surveys of twenty MS3s and MS4s. The interview consists of three segments:
- About the specialty
- How did they choose their specialty
- Long-term career advice (irrespective of specialty).
Ian is a thoughtful and effective interviewer who draws out valuable pearls from his guests, though I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone say “thank you for that” so often. His production quality is quite good, and you can see that he’s dedicated significant time and money (for a medical student at least!) to record a quality podcast. He sends the questions to the interviewers in advance, so they bring well-thought-out answers to his questions. He’s also a pretty interesting guy himself, having been a semi-pro hockey player in Sweden before starting medical school.
A few episodes take on other formats (including two episodes with advice from three MS4 buddies who matched into top specialties), making it a dynamic and well-rounded show.
Coming soon: 3 more podcasts to check out!
Med School Beast 
One thought on “The 3 best podcasts for medical students”