Surgery 101 is one of Edmonton's great podcast success stories, garnering millions of downloads and educating med students all over the world. Hosted by Dr. Jonathan White, who co-founded the podcast with Dr. Parveen Boora at the University of Alberta in 2008, this series is an outstanding example of the power of the medium to transfer knowledge.
"If I publish an academic scientific paper, I bet you a hundred people will read the title in the first year after publication. Maybe 50 people will read the abstract, 20 people will get the paper and five people will make it to the end of the paper. One or two people will get the point and change something based on the paper," White told University Affairs in 2017. "If I publish a podcast, I get 10,000 downloads in the first couple of weeks. Tell me again why I’m publishing papers when I can reach so many other people through podcasts?”
Most of the episodes are very instructional in nature, such as this one on chronic pancreatitis. But Surgery 101 has had a lot of fun over the years, conveying some lessons with the help of Lego, Muppets, and Star Trek.
Recommended for all listeners, regardless of whether you're an aspiring doctor, is Inclusive Medicine with Dr. Dinesh Palipana. In this special episode, he tells the story of how he became Australia's first quadriplegic ER doctor, and why inclusive medicine is so important. And, as he notes along the way, Surgery 101 was part of his education.