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REVIEWS: Graham Easton Dr Pod's Healthcast BMJ 2006; 332: 1340-a [Full text]

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The new trend

Tiago Villanueva   (2 June 2006)

The new trend 2 June 2006
Tiago Villanueva, Junior doctor, Lisbon, Portugal Lisbon Hospital Centre-central zone Send response to journal: Re: The new trend	I was really pleased to have read this piece. Podcasts are an emerging phenomenon in media, and science and medicine is no exception to it. It is also one of the best examples of the Web 2.0 phenomenon, leading to increasing levels of interactivity between authors and consumers, and enabling any amateur with a computer, a microphone, and the appropriate software, to have a say on the wide e-world. As such, Dr Easton was pertinent in pointing out the risk of learning to separate the wheat from the chaff, and expressed his preference for medical expert driven podcasts. I've recently heard about the Naked Scientists, a website with a podcast devoted to explaining science to the wider audience (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/). It was created by a group of researchers from the University of Cambridge, who share an interest in science communication, including doctor-scientists. The influence of podcasts in media is likely to increase exponentially over the next few years, and medicine is set to see many interesting projects in the field springing up. Competing interests: None declared