Podcasting: A Pedagogy to Develop Medical Student Skills and Graduate Attributes?

In the UK, the General Medical Council (GMC) sets the standard for medical education and training. Undergraduate medical curricula delivered in UK Medical Schools must demonstrate how they achieve proscribed ‘Outcomes for Graduates’ (GMC, 2018) to be an accredited provider. In parallel the University of Glasgow has developed a set of 10 defined graduate attributes. These are the academic abilities, personal qualities and transferable skills which all students should have the opportunity to develop as part of their university experience. (University of Glasgow, 2010) It is well acknowledged that medical curricula are by necessity content heavy and that students typically focus on this medical content. This focus on content can be to the detriment of the broader transferable skills and graduate attributes that the students are developing. To address this issue, since the autumn of 2020, two Year 2 medical course modules, Student Selected Components (SSCs) were designed to focus student attention to the graduate attributes and transferable skills required of a future medic. Between 2020 and 2023, a 5-week SSC module called Forensic Toxicology and Graduate Attributes (FT & GAs) was developed and delivered to a total of 19 medical students; one of the four assessments for this module was a podcast task (Britten, 2023). Another SSC module, Podcasting: an educational tool to develop medical student skills and graduate attributes was designed in the autumn of 2024 and was developed as an educational evolution to the FT & GAs SSC. It was delivered to 3 medical students in January and February 2025. This paper will provide a reflective commentary of the author’s experience of using Podcasting within SSCs to support her long-standing and strong academic practice philosophy which advocates student-centred learning as described by Cannon and Newble (2000). Where it has been shown that supporting students to engage in active approaches encourages deep learning and can lead to higher quality learning outcomes (Van Rossum and Schenk, 1984; Trigwell and Prosser, 1991; Trigwell, Prosser and Waterhouse, 1999 and Ramsden, 2003). The benefits of using podcasting to develop graduate attributes and skills of medical students will be discussed. In addition, the type and purpose of, student engagement with, and content creation of, podcasts and podcasting as part of SSCs will be covered. Challenges and limitations will also be touched upon.