Podcasting in Medicine: The Current Content by Emergency Medicine Subspecialty

Background Podcasts and their use in medical education, particularly emergency medicine (EM), are growing and becoming more popular. Many podcasts focus on EM, but the number of podcasts on each EM subspecialty remains unknown. Therefore, the goal of this study was to ascertain the number of podcasts available by EM subspecialty and collect the basic characteristics of each podcast. Methods We conducted a Google-based, investigational study of EM podcasts by subspecialty from July 2019 to January 2020. Search terms included "podcasts in_", where the EM subspecialties of Toxicology, Ultrasound, Wilderness Medicine, Emergency Medicine Services, Medical Education, and Simulation were inserted to identify podcasts. Results Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and Medical Education subspecialties have the most active podcasts. Toxicology and EMS have the most inactive podcasts, while Medical Education and Simulation were the only subspecialties found to not have any identified inactive podcasts. Conclusions The use of podcasts in EM has been increasing overall, but physicians in specific subspecialties, such as EMS and Medical Education, have access to a larger number of podcasts specific to their subspecialty than others. There is an opportunity for experts in Toxicology, Simulation, and Ultrasound to create podcast content.