Our story & editorial approach
Why MedPod Learn exists
MedPod Learn is an app that helps healthcare professionals turn medical podcast listening into structured learning.
Podcasts fit naturally into clinical life: on a commute, while travelling or exercising, and between other commitments. The learning can be valuable, yet difficult to retrieve, test, reflect on, connect to practice or document afterwards.
MedPod adds educational structure around that listening, while preserving the convenience and enjoyment that make podcasts useful.
The story behind MedPod Learn
I’ve been involved in medical podcasting for more than a decade, much of it through St Emlyn’s. I enjoy the conversations and the chance to learn from colleagues. But I also know how difficult it can be to remember everything afterwards—even when I helped make the episode.
A discussion might stay with me on the journey home, then become difficult to find again when I wanted to revisit a point, think about a patient or record what I had learned. That felt like a practical problem worth working on.
I started experimenting with structured notes, questions and reflection prompts around our episodes. That led to a broader question: could the same approach help people revisit learning from the wider range of good medical podcasts they already listened to?
Turning that idea into an app meant learning new skills, including Python, and working through the less familiar business of software development. The aim stayed fairly simple: keep the podcast experience convenient and enjoyable, and make it easier to do something useful with the learning afterwards.
Iain Beardsell · Founder, MedPod Learn
Read Iain’s original account on LITFL (January 2026)Meet Iain Beardsell
Professor Iain Beardsell is the founder of MedPod Learn, a Consultant in Emergency Medicine and a practising NHS clinician. He is Honorary Professor of Medical Education at the University of Southampton.
An experienced medical educator and long-standing medical podcast producer, Iain is also a Senior Editor and podcast contributor at St Emlyn’s. MedPod grew from his experience of clinical practice, teaching and making medical podcasts.
How MedPod Learn content is created
Selecting podcasts
Podcasts are identified through personal use, recommendations and suggestions from clinicians and listeners. Before a podcast is added, a small panel of listeners with an interest or experience in that clinical field listens to a selection of episodes and agrees that the podcast is suitable for inclusion.
This is a decision about including the podcast; it is not separate approval of every episode. MedPod continues to add podcasts, and suggestions are welcome.
Recommend a medical podcastDaily feed updates
Feeds are updated daily, normally at approximately 08:00 UK time, so newly released episodes can be incorporated. This is the usual update time, rather than a guaranteed publication time.
AI and the educational material
The original podcast remains the primary source. MedPod uses the episode transcript as source material, with AI generating show notes and structured educational summaries, single-best-answer questions and reflection prompts.
Transcripts are used only as an internal source for these materials; they are never published or made available to users.
MedPod currently uses the latest suitable version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT available through a Pro account, with a detailed, structured prompt developed specifically for this educational workflow. The AI is instructed to follow Iain Beardsell’s editorial and teaching voice as closely as possible.
These resources form MedPod’s added educational layer. They are separate from the original podcast and should not be read as the podcast creator’s own words.
Daily human spot-checks
Each day, a selection of newly generated episode material is spot-checked by a person. This is sampling-based quality checking, not human review of every episode or every generated summary, question and answer.
AI-generated material can contain errors. Daily spot-checking does not guarantee that every error will be identified.
Our editorial principles
The podcast is the source. Added learning material should remain faithful to what the episode discusses.
Educational material should be clinically useful, without unnecessary academic complexity.
Questions should test understanding and applied reasoning; reflection should connect learning to practice.
AI use should be transparent, and uncertainty should not be presented as certainty.
Errors should be open to correction when identified.
MedPod Learn is an educational tool, not a substitute for clinical guidelines, local policy or professional judgement.
Explore the research behind podcast learningPodcasts, creators and attribution
The original podcast audio and associated intellectual property remain the property of their respective creators and rightsholders. MedPod Learn does not claim ownership of the original audio.
Audio is streamed from the creator’s published RSS feed, in the same general manner as a podcast player, rather than hosted as MedPod-owned audio. Streaming through RSS does not remove copyright.
Podcast creators have been informed that their podcasts are included and given the opportunity to request removal. Feeds remain included unless a creator asks for removal. Some creators have expressed support publicly or privately; silence is not treated as consent, endorsement, approval or partnership.
MedPod’s additional summaries, questions and reflection material are produced by MedPod Learn. They should not be interpreted as written or approved by the original podcast creator unless specifically stated.
Creator enquiries: attribution, corrections or removalAccess, corrections and transparency
Funding and access
MedPod Learn is currently self-funded by Iain Beardsell and supported by user subscription income. It has no external commercial funding or sponsorship.
The project has roots in FOAMed: free, open access medical education. Podcast discovery and playback provide a useful free route into MedPod; subscriptions support the additional educational tools.
Pricing varies internationally. MedPod aims to make the service as affordable as practical in lower-income regions, within the regional pricing mechanisms available through the Apple App Store and Google Play.
View current plans and pricingCorrections and feedback
Please report factual errors, questionable questions or answers, outdated material, attribution issues or other concerns. Include the podcast and episode name, and the material you would like us to look at.
Report an error or concern to MedPod supportRecording professional learning
MedPod Learn helps clinicians record and document learning for CPD, portfolios and appraisal. Users should check the requirements of their own professional body or appraisal process.
MedPod Learn is operated by Standclear Medical Education (Ltd), based in the United Kingdom.
Download MedPod Learn
Find MedPod Learn on the Apple App Store or Google Play.
.svg)