PROshot Podcast: The Podcast Formerly Known as Quadshot

Abstract

<h3>Purpose/Objective(s)</h3> Medical literature is published at an unprecedented rate. Specifically, the field of oncology has experienced a dramatic increase in cancer therapeutics and technological advances in recent years. This creates challenges for practitioners and trainees who are interested in staying up-to-date with the latest in oncology literature. We developed an email newsletter and subsequently a podcast to help summarize recent publications so that busy physicians can remain current on cancer publications. We hypothesized that this type of hands-free, commuter-friendly platform would be well-received amongst the radiation oncology and broader oncology community. Here we present data from the initial 18 months of the PROshot podcast (formerly known as QuadShot News). <h3>Materials/Methods</h3> We queried analytics data from the media-hosting software SimpleCast from the podcast's inception in August 2019 to February 2021. Relevant data included all-time download numbers, download numbers of individual podcasts, location of download by country, and podcast listening methods. Descriptive statistics only were utilized for data analysis. <h3>Results</h3> The first podcast in the dataset was released in August 2019 with the last podcast being released in February 2021. A total of 104 podcasts were included in the analysis. The number of all-time podcast downloads was 33,082. The range of downloads for any individual podcast was 170-453 with the median number of downloads being 326. The median number of downloads for the first 10 released podcasts was 180, as compared to 323 for the last 10 released podcasts. The number of downloads increased over time as demonstrated in Figure 1. The most downloaded podcast was interview-based and recorded live at ASTRO 2019 within a special series of conversations with speakers and presenters. Podcast downloads occurred most commonly in the United States, representing over 88% (n = 29,239) of the downloads. The most common listening method was Apple Podcasts, being utilized 79% (n = 25,637) of the time. All other methods of listening each comprised < 5% of the total. <h3>Conclusion</h3> The PROshot Podcast is designed to update listeners on the latest breakthroughs in oncology. It has experienced considerable growth since its inception in August 2019 with a demonstrable market among today's radiation oncologists. Understanding that interview-based podcasts are popular among the current listeners, we hope to continue to grow the product into a more helpful tool by incorporating more of this content in the podcast.