‘Stanford Medcast’ podcast: From mini master classes to personal stories

Ruth Adewuya feels like she’s in a one-on-one master class on emerging medical research every time she records an episode of her podcast, “Stanford Medcast.”

Adewuya, the managing director of the Stanford Center for Continuing Medical Education (SCCME) and host of “Stanford Medcast,” provides “evidence-based content” from physicians and scientists across the world on topics spanning medicine, healthcare and education in the podcast.

“Stanford Medcast” is produced by SCCME, a resource that shares educational programs to other healthcare professionals. The podcast is CME-accredited, meaning clinicians can claim credit from episodes to apply towards their license or renewal, as well as professional development, according to Adewuya.

From each episode, Adewuya hopes clinicians walk away equipped to “translate complex medical knowledge into practical insights,” she said. She also hopes the podcast can inspire clinicians to stay engaged with the lifelong learning and community of medicine.

“Stanford Medcast” first premiered in September 2020 as a SCCME initiative to create online educational resources for clinicians. Originally intended to be a COVID mini-series, the podcast grew into a longer ongoing installment after it saw engagement from healthcare professionals regionally, nationally and internationally, Adewuya said.

“It became clear to me that there was an opportunity and a need to create high quality on-demand continuing medical education,” Adewuya said. “And this format allowed us to bring expert insights directly to clinicians in a way that was flexible and accessible.”

Before an episode, Adewuya’s team selects a topic that is guided by emerging healthcare trends, research focuses, listener feedback, relevant pop culture or celebrity health news. After confirming the guest, Adewuya’s team conducts research on the topic and their guest’s background and expertise. 

Adewuya also enjoys the technical conversations, like her episode with Michaela Kerrissey, assistant professor of management in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, on teamwork in patient care.

From the episode, Kerrissey hoped listeners “come away with a sense of what psychological safety is (and isn’t), why it matters deeply in healthcare and how they can foster it in their teams,” she wrote to The Daily.

Adewuya also noted a mini-series of episodes on opioids. Over the three conversations, Adewuya said she gained multiple perspectives on the opioid crisis from the clinicians’ different policies and lived experiences.

“That’s one of the great joys of [podcasting]: I get to sit and learn from these incredible clinicians,” Adewuya said.

Anna Lembke M.D. ’95, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and director of Addiction Medicine, wrote to The Daily that she hopes listeners will learn from her episode about pharmaceutical industries’ contribution to the opioid crisis in North America — a “take-over that was possible due to multiple fault lines in the healthcare system,” she wrote.

On the other hand, Boston University assistant professor of community health sciences and former Stanford postdoctoral scholar Noel Vest’s conversation with Adewuya had more of a personal element. He talked about his personal story of going from incarceration to advocacy of public policy reform in substance use, disorder recovery and prison reentry.

“If someone asked me about the history that led me to my career and research, and I didn’t have a whole lot of time to explain it to them on the call, I just send them right to that podcast,” Vest said to The Daily.

In an upcoming episode, Adewuya will be talking with Elizabeth Oyekan, Stanford Health Care’s chief pharmacy officer, who Adewuya said is an “incredible leader.”

Oyekan hopes listeners of the episode will learn more about the complexity of healthcare leadership that requires “the ability to balance patient-centered care with operational demands, while navigating constant change and unpredictability,” she said.

Adewuya and her guests also have conversations about their personal stories in medicine. Sometimes a clinician will share an experience that reshaped their practice or a researcher describing an “aha moment” that led to a breakthrough.

“Those moments really remind us of why we do this work and how medicine is constantly evolving,” Adewuya said.

The podcast will celebrate its 100th episode on March 11. Adewuya hopes “to continue to provide practical insights for clinicians and to tell some of the stories behind personal stories behind each other.”

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