When then-dean Milton C. Winternitz, M.D., established the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine in the late 1920s, it was a key component of the educational philosophy he called the Yale System of Medical Education.
The journal, along with the Yale System’s emphasis on original student research and the requirement that every student complete a thesis, contributed to the graduate-school atmosphere in which Yale medical students learned. Almost 90 years after its first issue appeared in 1928, the journal continues to publish and to serve as a learning environment for students in medicine, public health, and the biomedical sciences. For the past decade it has been published online through PubMed Central, and earlier this year, the journal’s editors launched a series of podcasts to further extend its reach. The podcasts—audio programs of 40 minutes to an hour in length—come three years after YJBM established a colloquium series to highlight the focus topic in each of the journal’s themed issues.
By producing three podcasts in connection with each journal issue, “we aim to go through the past, present, and future of the issue's focus topic,” says Helen Beilinson, who is producing the series with fellow YJBM editors Erica Gorenberg and Ali Kuhlmann. “Our audience is non-scientists with an interest in science, scientists not in the focus topic's field, and any scientists curious about the topic.”
Each episode in the series follows a formula. In episode 1, the producers put together a history of the field, focusing on topics that are most relevant to the articles published in the issue. The episode also covers major techniques used in the field, as well as diseases associated with the focus topic.
Episode 2 focuses on where the field is today. “Our goal is to link together current lab work, as well as how the focus topic is seen in the clinic,” says Beilinson. “We discuss articles in the issue and current medical techniques being used that are related to the topic.” This episode is in an interview format with a Yale clinician and a YJBM member associated with the issue.
In the third episode, the students interview the colloquium speaker, or a post-doc or graduate student from their lab, to discuss the research that was described in the talk, as well as what the future of the field is likely to be—questions that are still unanswered and techniques that need to be developed.
Beilinson says the podcast was conceived with the idea of providing a public outreach platform to explore the history of science and demonstrate how a field of science changes and is influenced by big discoveries.
“It also provides a platform in which clinicians and scientists can talk about their research in a way that is accessible to non-scientists and scientists outside of the field,” she says. “It also allows for a greater exposure of YJBM to a novel audience and provides YJBM board members with the opportunity to participate in podcast research, publication, and recording, as well as provides the opportunity to interview the top clinicians and scientists at Yale.”
Episodes are recoded at the Yale Broadcast and Media Center on College Street, which helps with the recording, editing, and publishing of the podcast.