Best Podcast Recommendations for Medical Students & Residents

Alexa

22 Apr 2025 — 6 min read

Whether you’re in the hustle and bustle of medical school, getting ready for Match day, or going through hell (I mean, residency), lifelong learning is going to be a major part of your journey.

Discover some of the best podcasts for med students and residents, organized by specialty. At the end, I included some recommended must-listens for everyone navigating medical school or residency life, as well as a few bonus ones that you guys recommended.

As an emergency medicine doctor, I rely heavily on FOAMed (Free Open-Access Medical Education). Studying now looks a lot different than it did in medical school, and I learn so much on my commute to work, road trips or even just doing laundry at home.

Curated Podcast Picks by Specialty (And Some For All)

Emergency Medicine:

The specialty closest to my heart. I listen to these almost daily. Here are a few of my favorites:

Resus X: each episode features an amazing talk from the ResusX conference from 2024. Save the date for the September 29 - October 1, 2025 conference, live at Punchline Philly.
EM Clerkship: this podcast serves as a guide to emergency medicine. It features oral board review and gives tips to students applying for EM residency.
Emergency Medicine Cases: I learn so much from each episode; my favorite ones are the Quick Hits series.
Emergency Medical Minute: each short episode features real recordings from a morning didactic session, giving listeners current, hands-on insights from actual cases.
EM Board Bombs: only board-style question bank in audio format; they have a free and paid version (called Rapid Bombs) that I did pay for once during residency.

Critical Care:

Closely related to my favorites, and I often listen to these. EM and critical care are so closely intertwined that you couldn't have one without the other.

Critical Care Time: this is a biweekly podcast where intensivists share practical insights & real-world cases for anyone who cares for critically ill patients.
EM Crit: an evidence-based insight for critical care and emergency clinicians looking to improve outcomes in high-risk settings; I pay for the membership at only $20 a year for residents!
ICUedu: this podcasts covers key critical care concepts for ICU and emergency clinicians - they also have a great website with amazing notes in the form of downloadable info "cards".
Saving Lives w/ eddyjoemd: each episode discusses the latest research, best practices, and practical insights in intensive care medicine for critically ill patients.
Internet Book of Critical Care: it offers an amazing brief overview of a focused and substantive, evidence-based discussions about major critical care topics for ICU clinicians and emergency providers; an absolute must-listen.

Internal Medicine:

I’ve only listened to a few, but these are my favorites:

Core IM: this provides physicians and other healthcare professionals with advanced patient care skills and knowledge.
The Curbsiders: this podcast serves up high-value internal medicine insights with humor, perfect for IM, primary care, family, and hospital medicine.
The Medicine Grand Rounders: it provides clinicians and practical insights from world-class specialists.
Febrile (infectious diseases-specific): it features the state-of-the-art reviews, clinical cases, and stewardship insights.
Cardionerds (cardiology-specific): excellent knowledge and in-depth discussions about the latest advancements in the world of cardiology.
ID:IOTS - Infectious Disease Insights of Two Specialists: it discusses everything you need to know to diagnose and treat infections.

Surgery:

As an EM resident, I’m far from an expert on surgery, but here are some highly-recommended choices:

Behind the Knife: a #1 surgery podcast that offers high-yield topics and expert interviews to help you excel at morning report.
Surgey 101: this delivers brief, student-focused episodes that introduce key surgical topics in 10-20 minutes.
Surgical Snippets: this provides amazing episodes that serve as a study aid for medical students and residents preparing for ABSITE exams and surgical rotations.
The Cutting Edge: An AAST Podcast: it will bring you the most expert insights and interviews with pathological trauma, acute care, and emergency surgery by cutting-edge technology and real-time surgical experience for the acute care provider.

Pediatrics:

A little love for the little ones:

PEM: Don’t Forget the Bubbles: it talks about pediatric emergency topics and providing practical insights to support clinicians in delivering high-quality care to children, especially in urgent settings.
CHOP (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia): this provides expert insights on pediatric emergency medicine from clinical cases to public health; a lot of the guidelines we follow in PEM are from CHOP.
Charting Pediatrics: this has a weekly podcast from Children’s Hospital Colorado that talks on a wide range of pediatric health topics, clinical insights, and personal stories.
Pediatrics On Call: offers a weekly podcast from the American Academy of Pediatrics, giving practical insights to support clinicians in caring for children.
Cribsiders: this one's to be saved, offers a biweekly podcast, talks about evidence-based pediatric content. (And who doesn't love a good pun.)

OBGYN:

These are my top choices – I listened to some of these in med school:

Things Every Doctor Should Know

Bedside Rounds: an incredible, extremely-well researched history of medicine podcast that I love.
MedMal Insider: insight into the medico-legal aspect of taking care of patients, to help YOU become a better doctor
Financial Residency: all the things they DON’T teach you in medical school, about how to be an adult and be better with your money.
Stimulus - Doctoring Done Well: a podcast to help us fight burnout and improve mental wellness in medicine.
White Coat Investor: a blog and podcast with priceless information - the stuff that you wish your parents taught you, growing up.

And finally, check out my blog post on documentation tips and how to be more efficient at work, linked here. If you would like to buy my list of differential diagnoses to consider, check out my digital storefront (below).

Get it here!

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Final Thoughts

Training in medicine is a lot of bedside teaching, which means that your experiences will directly reflect the experiences of your teachers. It is therefore on you to learn OUTSIDE of that setting, to educate yourself, to verify if your attendings are actually correct.

So much of what we learn is based on "what we always do," and your duty to yourself and your patients is to ensure that you actually practice evidence-based medicine. Podcasts are a great way to do that, in short, manageable (sound) bytes.

Visit my Instagram post for the entire carousel and don’t forget to save it; your future self will appreciate your foresight!

Recommendations from Instagram

Here are some additional podcasts our community has suggested: