Most people think of podcasting as a marketing channel, creative outlet, or something they listen to during commutes. But for others, it’s something else entirely.
For Christine Slobogin, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester, it’s a teaching tool.
I spoke with Christy about her student-forward podcast, In the Same Vein—a podcast where students co-host conversations with scholars in health humanities and bioethics.
What I love about the show is how intentional the process is. Students don’t just show up to ask questions. They help shape the entire episode. They read the literature. They pick the guest. They design the narrative arc. They learn what makes a listener stay engaged.
And they see how much editing and structure it takes to make an interview sound effortless.
In other words, they learn the real mechanics of communication.
For medical and graduate students who spend most of their time in labs, lecture halls, and clinical rotations, podcasting taps into a different skill set. It teaches them to distill ideas clearly, think on the fly, and approach conversations with empathy and curiosity. And as Christy put it, it also teaches them how to be better consumers of the media they encounter every day.
Learning how a podcast is made teaches you to listen differently. You hear the edits. The choices. The framing. The intentionality.
That kind of literacy matters—not just for creating content, but for navigating a world filled with information that’s polished, persuasive, and not always accurate.
Christy’s students walk away having built something real. Something they can point to. Something that tells a story. And for a field like medicine—where trust, communication, and human connection matter almost as much as clinical expertise—that’s powerful.
If you’re curious how a student-forward podcast actually works, or what students gain from stepping behind the mic, I think you’ll enjoy this one. It’s on YouTube and Spotify.
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