Abstract
Purpose :
Podcasts for medical education have recently become popular for their convenience. Podcasts focused on the practice of ophthalmology have also emerged. However, podcasts specifically for residency-level ophthalmic education had not existed prior to this work. This study aims to examine the perceived educational effect of Eyes for Ears, a newly created ophthalmic education podcast.
Methods :
The Eyes for Ears podcast was started January 2019, created and hosted by authors AP, BY and AR. Episodes are released weekly and are 15 to 20 minutes in length. Each reviews a topic in ophthalmic education. In a cross-sectional, descriptive IRB-approved study, a Qualtrics survey 8 questions in length was used to query listeners of the Eyes for Ears podcast over a 3 month period. Listeners were directed to the survey via the podcast’s website. Where appropriate, two-tailed Student’s t-tests were used for statistical analysis. Listenership metrics were also aggregated via the podcast host (Podbean).
Results :
Between 1/1/19 and 11/11/19, the podcast was downloaded over 61,700 times. Most listeners were based in the United States (45,600 downloads). 113 listeners responded to the survey in full. Most respondents were ophthalmology trainees from PGY2 through fellowship years (64.6%) or medical students and PGY1s (15.9%). 87.5% of respondents listened about one to four times per week. 84 respondents reported listening during their commute and 23 reported listening during exercise. 41 respondents (62.8%) felt that the podcast gave them more time to devote to self-care activities. When asked to grade their own self-assessment of an ophthalmic fund of knowledge (from 1 to 100, with 100 being the most prepared) both before and after using the podcast, listeners reported a significant improvement in preparation scores after using the podcast (49.97 before versus. 67.38 after, p<0.001). When asked to grade various educational resources (from 1 to 100, with 100 being the most useful), listeners assigned the podcast a mean score of 72.78. This was significantly higher than didactic lectures (60.81, p<0.001), journal articles (43.89, p<0.001), and textbooks (67.53, p=0.028), though question banks scored significantly higher than the podcast (81.59, p=0.001).
Conclusions :
The Eyes for Ears podcast is a popular and viable educational resource for ophthalmic trainees.
This is a 2020 ARVO Annual Meeting abstract.