We are not the only ones in the aging arena making use of new media. Many of our grantees are using podcasting technology to get their message out. Want to listen in? Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of free audio and video podcasts and webcasts those of us working in aging might want to check out.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement runs two series:

  1. Author in the Room, a discussion of important papers from The Journal of the American Medical Association. For example, here’s a conversation with David Reuben, MD, about medical care at the end of life.
  2. WIHI (get it?), a webinar series turned into podcasts. Last fall the series featured a conversation with Diane Meier, Director, Center to Advance Palliative Care, about incorporating patient desires into quality care for advanced illness.

At the Geriatric Nursing Education Consortium, Melissa Aselage, MSN, RN, FNP-BC, a 2009-11 BAGNC scholar, posted several podcasts about the care of older adults.

Given the broad mandate of medical schools funded in the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation program to increase geriatric education for physicians, several universities have created geriatric podcast series, such as Texas Tech and the Medical University of South Carolina.

Hartford’s own Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence at Penn State has a series, as has the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, with a series of webcasts on geriatric nursing.

Penn State has also created a series of videos about geriatric nursing education, posted here.

Perhaps the best way to find many aging-related podcasts is through the iTunes software, which you can download for free here. Just search on keywords in the iTunes store to find them. For example, check out a podcast series from the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute on Aging (search on University of Pennsylvania and Aging). There is also a great video podcast of Eric Larsen from the University of Washington talking about interdisciplinary research (just search on Eric Larsen to find it). Try it—you might like it!

This list just scratches the surface of a growing collection of wonderful age-related information out there in cyberspace. If you are aware of any other podcasts or video collections that could be useful to the geriatric medicine, nursing, and social work communities, please post them here.