By Erin Chong (Media & Learning Technologies Assistant, EdTech) on July 11, 2022
Podcasts are increasingly popular and can be a tool for both creating educational content and shining light onto important topics and conversations. Over the past few years, the UBC Medicine Learning Network (UBCMLN) has grown to consist of 5 podcasts currently:
- Women’s Health Interrupted which utilizes both scientific inquiry and storytelling to explore women’s health from every angle
- MEDamorphosis where UBC Medical students interview physicians to share experiences about various specialties
- Primary Care in a Pandemic which looks at changes in British Columbia’s primary care during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Centre for Rural Health Research (CRHR) Podcast which focuses on uplifting rural and remote patient and community voices
- COVID-19 Updates for Health Care Providers: Experiences from the Front Lines where panels of health care professionals experienced in the front lines of care speak about COVID-19 care
You can check out the most recent episode of the MEDamorphosis Podcast: S4E1: Inviting Medicine In: Let’s Talk Queerness in Medicine (OUTREACH x MEDamorphosis)!
I had the chance to interview Stephen Gillis who is the Supervising Producer, UBCMLN Content and Distribution to gain insight about the network!
What was the inspiration behind each podcast?
When I was pitching the team the idea of building out a podcast network, we only had one podcast in production, the MEDamorphosis Podcast. The podcast literally morphed, (pun completely intended), from a one-time FLEX project into a full-fledge bi-weekly podcast now entering its 4th season. Seeing the student voice being empowered and amplified, was a real motivator for me and I saw this as an opportunity to do the same for many other voices across the faculty.
Now with 5 shows on the network and more in-development, we are seeing space being given to important and inclusive conversations in women’s health issues, a more inclusive health system for LGBTQIA2S+ medical professionals and patients, providing primary care during a pandemic, and the importance of meeting people where they are with rural & remote care.
What are some successes that have been encountered?
Some great successes have been seeing UBC Medicine students flourish as podcast hosts and producers on MEDamorphosis. Many students that joined the podcast as a part of FLEX have no experience in podcasting and seeing them build up their knowledge during training with our very own Technical Producer, Sam McGuiness, and then applying it to make a very professional sounding podcast is always fulfilling.
Also, as mentioned before, just having opportunity to amplify voices and conversation within the Faculty of Medicine that may have not been heard prior. Within our 5 shows on the network and more in-development, we are seeing space being given to important and inclusive conversations in women’s health issues (Women’s Health Interrupted), a more inclusive health system for LGBTQIA2S+ medical professionals and patients (MEDamorphosis S4E1), providing primary and team care in urban areas during COVID (Primary Care in a Pandemic), and the importance of meeting people where they are when providing rural & remote care (CRHR Podcast).
What about any challenges?
The big challenge with podcasting is that everyone has a podcast. We are effectively battling 150,000 other podcasts for listeners’ ears. We may have less competition for our niche programming, but any form of entertainment or edutainment can cause an audience member to look away and focus on something else. With this in mind, we need to continue to train our podcast producers the best way possible, with an emphasis on good storytelling and production. High-quality and consistent content is our goal to continuing building the network, showcasing and maintaining the world-renowned educational content from UBC Medicine.
What has been a main takeaway from this experience?
My main takeaway from the experience of launching the UBC Medicine Learning Network is that you can’t have a “build it and they will come” mindset when building a project like this. It is very much like a garden, you start with one plant, water it, cultivate it, add more, and maintain it as it grows. UBCMLN has grown to produce 99 episodes, across 5 shows, that have been downloaded 25,000 times. Our garden is starting to grow and we have more new shows debuting in 2022-23.
You can subscribe to the all of the UBC Medicine Learning Network shows on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, Audible, and your favourite podcast platform. Feel free to send us an email at edmedia.med@ubc.ca if you have any ideas for a podcast and are interested in collaborating or looking to work with our team!
Special thank you to Stephen Gillis for contributing to this post!