VCU news

By Anne Dreyfuss
C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research

On a Wednesday morning early in the fall semester, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine faculty members Steven Bishop, M.D., and Jeff Kushinka, M.D., meet in Bishop’s office on the sixth floor of West Hospital to discuss how to best treat patients with high cholesterol. The two doctors, who work in the school’s Division of General Internal Medicine, candidly discuss their clinical practices. They share issues they encounter with the patients they treat, such as patients not taking the medications they were prescribed, and offer advice on how to overcome those issues.

“One does not feel himself having hypertension except in relatively rare circumstances,” says Kushinka, who is the associate chair of clinical affairs and an associate professor in the Division of Internal Medicine.

“Except for the day you have a stroke,” Bishop adds.

“It’s difficult to convince patients to take medication for primary prevention,” Kushinka continues. “That has always been an issue despite the huge evidence base that suggests that primary prevention is really a good thing.”

The back-and-forth dialogue between the pair continues for 30 minutes. Bishop, who has known Kushinka since he started his residency at VCU Medical Center in 2010, has had countless similar conversation with his mentor through the years. This casual morning chat is no different than those hallway, break room, or office conversations, except for the presence of one small device. Between them on Bishop’s desk sits an upright metal microphone that is recording their every word, and on Sept. 1, the world will be invited to listen in.

The VCU GenMed Podcast series launches Sept. 1 with an episode on research and scholarship opportunities for general internists. Every Tuesday, the podcast will feature a different member of the Department of Internal Medicine or a generalist from another institution who is visiting for grand rounds talking about various topics that expose new ways of thinking about patient care and research.

“We’re sort of all here in our cloistered VCU environment and we don’t interact as much with doctors outside of VCU,” said Bishop, who is the associate clerkship director for the Department of Internal Medicine and clinical educator for the Division of General Internal Medicine. “We have experts in hyperlipidemia management, in innovative educational practices, and in a whole host of other things right here at VCU that people might not know about.”

I came up with the idea of creating a podcast series that people could access any time that is convenient for them.

Bishop had the idea to start the podcast series during a faculty retreat in May.

“One of the things we’re always struggling with is in the area of mentorship and disseminating information amongst ourselves because everyone has such different schedules,” Bishop said. The Division of General Internal Medicine includes about 60 full-time faculty members, many of whom work at outpatient clinics or work the night shift at the hospital. “I came up with the idea of creating a podcast series that people could access any time that is convenient for them because they can’t always make it to our daytime conferences,” he said.

The podcast is produced for people who work in medical fields, but it will be of interest to the general public as well. Typical topics will include innovations in educational practices and updates with clinical problems commonly encountered by the division’s faculty such as lung disease, chronic hypertension, diabetes, depression, and anxiety. “I chose topics on things that I wanted to learn more about,” Bishop said. “It’s a chance for me to get to email someone or call them up and say ‘Hey, I’d like to talk to you about this and, by the way, can we record it and put it on iTunes?’ I get to learn something at the same time.”

Bishop, who didn’t have any audio production experience before starting the podcast series, says he is looking forward to using the new technology as a tool to forge new connections within his department and to provide an outlet for the world-class medical practitioners at VCU to share their expertise with the wider world.

“The podcast allows us to disseminate content around the globe,” he said. “I’m hoping it will become an outlet for the general medicine community here in Richmond and around the world so that people can connect with each other.”

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