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

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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Much as it kills me to admit it, as a podcaster and medical director with 20:20 hindsight, I’d say that podcasting should be secondary to blogging for super busy medpros.

That’s a painful admission for a dyed-in-the-wool podcaster. I came to medical podcasting a year ago, and blogged as an afterthought (I thought quickie shownotes were proper blog posts). I love podcasting, but when putting on my director’s cap, there are time management realities about podcasting that are hard to overlook. Podcasting does take extra time and recording equipment to do, so assuming you’re time constrained…you may want to choose the alternative.

But thankfully, there’s a catch.

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I’ve alluded to this particular nugget before: sometimes, the most efficient and economical way to do something is to pay someone else to do it.

I started into blogging and podcasting about a year ago, after several months of studying them and getting my interest piqued. I took the “physiology” approach to learning, namely, trying to understand the mechanics of every facet, so I could do it all and understand what went where: the hardware, the software, the web hosting and file transfers — everything.

It took me about 3 months to put out a decent quality podcast, about 3 more months to generate content reliably and smoothly, and about more 2 months to apply the medical podcasting lessons towards getting started in medical blogging. I say “started,” because after thinking more like a writer and designer than a busy medpro, I realized something pivotal: a podcast shownote is NOT the same thing as a well-written medical blog entry.

And THEN I took up marketing and SEO.

Back to ground zero, again.

If you’re just starting to seriously blog for your medical practice, and are interested in saving many moons of trial and error (and want to transition into medical podcasting), check out this free resource by the professional blogger, Yaro Starak. As a 55-page ebook, it’s not specific to medical blogging, but it’s the most succinct one stop shop I’ve found about setting up and running a blog, and the core principles of successfully — and profitably — marketing it. [Read more →]

Three little letters can make or break your show.

RSS.

As in, “RSS feed.”

Problems with your RSS feed…suck.

Your listeners automatically get your shows via this text-based file that shouts, Computer, look here for new content. People like that “automatically” part - they expect the automatic update notification to happen regularly, and without glitches. Your material is loaded into their podcast or blog reading software, and without having to lift a finger, your feed subscribers get your newest content, to be played back at their own convenience.

You see the problem?

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 Show #7 - podcasting mics: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If this is your first time back to the website, welcome to its revamped look!

Courtesy of the Cutline 1.1 theme for WordPress by Chris Pearson, it features what for me was a more readable layout and font size, plus a cleaner look (echoed by my colleagues and family). I’m still a fan of the prior theme, Connections Reloaded 1.5, for its modernity and elegance, but both Cutline and its sister theme, Copyblogger, focus on straightforward lines and ease of customization.

Mark Jensen, On Podcasting Microphones

A reminder: P4MP isn’t about podcasting to increase your practice’s profit (at least, not only), it’s about getting your medical podcasts up and running as quickly as possible and sounding as good as possible, regardless of topic. The recent shows and posts are part of an important series on income optimization, but today’s interview gets back to a universal - What gear do you need, to get that pro sound that any podcaster wants?

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In case you’ve been sleeping in a cave these past few years, here’s a newsflash:

How people utilize and pay for medical services is mutating.

Rapidly. Like a freight train that changes boxcars at every stop.

And if you’re not careful about keeping up with it, that train is going to run your medical practice over — or leave you behind, at the very least. [Read more →]

 

 Show #6 - Podcasting vs. Blogging Your Medical Material: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

You may be tempted as I was to podcast instead of blog all of your medical material, but medical podcasting is best done judiciously, like all podcasting. Your listeners will struggle with some audio material, which they could have easily skim read, but some material really packs the most punch — leverages this medium like a lift under a half-ton truck — when podcast.

And sometimes, medical podcasting is NOT about “podcasting your passion.” [Read more →]