Make a quality medical podcast, without podcasting taking over your life.

 

 Show #9 - Better Podcasting Using Your Car: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today’s show is about becoming a smoother, more confident medical podcaster. And you can work on this using a piece of “gear” you already use every day: your car windshield.

Even though talking to patients is more practice than most podcasters get (nearly zero prep time, covering multiple topics, and projecting a relaxed professionalism), there IS a difference between the give-and-take of an office interaction, and sitting down solo with your mic.

If you’ve found making that transition a bit difficult, give today’s show a listen, and take advantage of a flow state that nearly all of us access on a daily basis.

Disclaimer: if you have trouble chewing gum and walking at the same time — or driving and talking out loud — this method is not for you!

Let me hear from you!

 

 Show #8: How To Make A 20 Minute Show in 25 Minutes: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is the audio version of the July 7 blog post, on the method I use for generating medical podcasts, in little more time than it takes to “dictate” the material.

But first: thank you, for sticking around through my summer hiatus — okay, podfade. Sometimes, the rate limiting step isn’t a big-ticket item like how you approach recording and post-production, but something small and funny in retrospect. And just as much of a show-killer.

Basic take-home: whatever obstructs your podcasting efforts, no matter how seemingly small, if you’re not putting out shows as regularly as you’d like, you have to respect it and deal with it. ‘Nuff said.

Today’s show addresses a very common show-killer, or at least blocker: a podcasting workflow that makes your production time 2-5 times longer than it needs to be. Read the related detailed blog post on this, but essentially, for under $300 and using a different approach to recording your shows, you can bypass literally hours of needless post-recording production.

And hours less time per show means your odds of regularly podcasting go waaay up.

The 3rd annual Podcasting and New Media Expo is coming up in just under two months in Ontario, California. And there’s still time to sign up for 3 of the best days in podcasting on earth, bar none.

If you are considering podcasting to promote your medical practice, I strongly suggest you attend this conference. Everyone who is anyone in podcasting will be there, as well as folks all along the podcasting spectrum, from newbies on up (most of us will always be newbies at some level).

You can link up with folks who don’t know an XLR from an AST, or bloggers looking to add audio, or educators using videocasts in their classrooms, or radio broadcasters looking to do it all. All of whom are more than happy to share.

Classes run continuously, just like any medical convention, clustered around general themes (beginning podcasting, hobbyists, monetizing your shows, podcasting and blogging for corporate and business purposes, educational uses, etc). And the expo floor has every vendor of note, displaying the latest software, hardware, and audio gee-gaw to die for.

I don’t get anything for plugging this, except knowing that I’m passing on a major resource that has helped me tremendously.

Hope to see you there!

There’s been a fair amount of buzz in the medical blogosphere lately, about medical blogs dying out.

Though that seems premature, it raises concerns among the lawsuit-leery medical community, about starting to blog and podcast. One blogger who went offline was involved in litigation, and was commenting on matters pertaining to the case. Another stated it was just a matter of time before attorneys hunt down the anonymous subjects of medical blogs, and pursue them for legal action.

What is a medical blogger or podcaster to do?

First, there’s a basic difference between medical podcasting and blogging (henceforth “P&B”) for outreach among the medical community, and for outreach to current and prospective patients. While the former definitely has its place, it is fraught with personal liability exposure risks — primarily, that patient details you P&B about could be traced back to your particular patient, and you as their caregiver.

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The previous post outlined the method I use for basic medical podcasting:

1. Get a hardware box (a “vocal strip” or “mic processor”) to professionally clarify your sound.
2. Use cart software and a one-take recording technique to put your show into its final form while you dictate it.
3. Briefly dash-off a show note while the audio compiles.

This works terrifically for the majority of medical podcasting needs — you only need half an hour of work to record a 20 minute show, and get a pro audio sound throughout.

The process I’m actually using these days is the opposite, what I call “reverse podcasting“: start with the writing, then finish with the audio.

It actually takes longer — anywhere from 1-3 hours per article, currently — but makes better use of blogging’s 2 great strengths: easy content creation, and SEO enhancement. Reverse podcasting also allows you to update your content in layers. You start with the writing that you can create at any time, no matter how noisy your environment is. And if for any reason you never get around to recording the podcast, you still have a quality blog post.

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If you’re a busy medical podcaster, you’ve already experienced the classic production tradeoff, like that mutually exclusive electron thingy from physics.

You can make a quality sounding show, or a so-so quickly done show, but not a quality sounding, quickly done show.

Yet that’s exactly what a busy medpro needs to accomplish. You don’t have an infinite amount of time to correct goofs in your recordings, or splice together the musical interludes and sound effects, etc. If you spend 3 hours of production per 20 minute show, you won’t end up with enough shows to help your practice, or enjoy making them.

Here’s how to get it done efficiently, in 4 steps.
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Dr. Man Nguyen recently wrote a very thought provoking comment.

Doctors, he notes, are extremely busy — I mean extremely busy. Especially compared to years gone by, with older physicians recalling — and much missing — a clearly different sense of camaraderie that we no longer seem to have time for.

If he — a young MD recently out of residency — is so rushed that he emails his wife, how much more so are the older generation of physicians?

Information Overload Is A Chronic State Of Being

As a modern medpro, you juggle email, prescription refills, lab reviews, decreasing reimbursement, marketing responsibilities, staffing issues,

“Just Work Faster And Harder” may have worked in the 19th century. But it’s information that is snowing you under, not physical objects, and information can accumulate at the speed of light.

EMR, CME, and malpractice worries, and that’s just during your day job. The most common strategy to deal with all this seems to be “Just Work Faster And Harder” — see more patients, take more calls, speak faster on the phone.

That may have worked in the 19th century. But it’s information that is snowing you under, not physical objects, and information can accumulate at the speed of light.

Try to deal with your morass of tasks the old fashioned way, and you’ll likely hit “the engine ceiling,” as I referred to it. You can only race your internal “engine” so fast before you reach your limit, or break down. Burn out, missing irreplaceable family time, or feeling professionally isolated is the result.

If you count yourself among the medpros in this situation, you may be wondering as Dr. Nguyen is, Am I supposed to adopt new blogging and podcasting technologies, on top of everything else?

Absolutely.

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