Utility of a novel trainee-level hematology/oncology podcast in graduate medical education.

Abstract

11027 Background: Despite the popularity of podcasts in medical education, there are a limited number of trainee-level hematology/oncology (H/O) podcasts. We created & implemented a novel H/O podcast curriculum to address this barrier. Here, we evaluated the utility of this podcast for H/O fellows & internal medicine (IM) residents on H/O rotations. Methods: We included IM residents & H/O fellows at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the 2022-2023 academic year. Each IM resident starting on a H/O inpatient rotation received an email prior to their rotation with list of recommended episodes. H/O fellows were encouraged to listen to episodes at their discretion. We developed anonymous surveys using a 5-point Likert scale (1, “strongly disagree” to 5, “strongly agree”) to understand how the podcast helped prepare them clinically & if H/O podcasts were effective educational tools. Results: A total of 20 trainees completed the survey including 7 residents (35%) & 13 fellows (65%). All post-graduate years were represented. Results of the survey are presented in the table. Most felt the podcast material helped with inpatient rotations & consults, was clinically relevant, & helped with clinical decision-making with a mean score of 4.76, 4.79, and 4.50, respectively. Respondents agreed the fundamentals of H/O are amenable to a podcast platform & are likely to continue to use podcasts as learning tools in H/O with a mean score of 4.68 and 4.40, respectively. When restricting to the fellow cohort, the majority felt that the podcast material helped them prepare for their clinic patients with a mean score of 4.62. Most found the podcast convenient & the most common activities while listing to our podcast were driving (70%), doing chores (35%), exercising (25%), and eating (25%). Conclusions: H/O fellows & IM residents found the trainee-level podcast curriculum clinically relevant and helped with clinical decision making. The respondents also all agreed or strongly agreed that podcasts are an effective medium to teach hematology/oncology. Our successfully piloted podcast curriculum can be adapted to other training programs to improve foundational knowledge in oncology. [Table: see text]