WINNER: Product of the Year at the 2008 Reynolds Grantees Meeting in St. Louis, MO

Wikipedia defines podcasts as "a series of audio or video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers." With portable media players such as iPods being quite ubiquitous nowadays, it is not surprising that geriatric medical educators have utilized podcasts as an alternative way for students to learn content outside the usual time of instruction as well as venue.

One of the first institutions to utilize this Web 2.0 tool is Texas Tech University HSC in Lubbock, TX with their series "Medcast Reynolds Geriatric Series." Produced by Betsy Jones EdD, Associate Professor of Family and Community Medicine, the series offers audio podcasts of various key geriatric topics such as functional assessment, health literacy, polypharmacy and nursing home visits. The podcasts showcase experts in the field primarily from Texas Tech and occasional guests from the area. The discussions are fast paced with the lengths of the podcasts ranging from 12 minutes (heel pain among older adults) to 46 minutes (Alzheimer's disease and other dementias in 2 parts). Requirements include a portable media player, a set of headphones and the ability to multi-task since most podcast users choose this instructional format due to the listener's ability to do the latter. Albeit quite passive and not for the visual learner, the student, resident or the practicing physician who utilizes this Texas Tech podcast series can receive geriatric content and have the ability to pause, rewind and repeat content while in the gym, walking, riding on the train or in a car - lifestyle befitting the generation that is always on the go and the generation that is trying to keep up!

Most of the podcasts are quite structured such as the podcast on "The Mini-Mental State Exam" with Drs. Tommie Farrell and Stephen Fath, which is done on location in Louisville, KY during the Annual Meeting of the Southern Group Educational Affairs (together with background noise from the meeting), and others having a discussion outline like the “Geriatric Functional Assessment" podcast with Drs. Lynn Bickley and Fiona Prabhu. Discussants' voices in the podcasts are clear and quite easy to follow. The podcast host's facilitation is also key to a successful podcast especially in topics that could have been enhanced with visuals. Since we are dealing with a purely aural delivery of content (they refer to the students as "our listeners"), hosts need to encourage the speakers to describe in greater detail the topics they are discussing.

The entire series is well thought out, offers a wide array of topics for all levels of learners (there are presently 14 podcasts in the series), and really offers an alternative content delivery that is fresh and current. The Texas Tech site also offers one page fact sheets that contains each episode's learning objectives, speakers and reference materials. True to the ubiquity of this format, the Reynolds Geriatric Medcast series is also housed in iTunesU. For more information go to http://www.ttuhsc.edu/fammed.