The Top 5 Episodes of 2023, #5
The numbers are in! Here we review the top 5 episodes of 2023 by raw listener numbers.
At #5, “Fallen Out of Favor” with Rad Onc applicant Dr. Laura Flores!
We discuss The Rad Onc Match, medical students perceptions of the field, and answer questions from prospective applicants.
If you liked this discussion of The Match and our field, consider checking out some commentary on the 2023 preliminary ERAS numbers from our brother Dr. Jason Beckta on the Out Of The Basement podcast (“Cognitive Dissonance”, October 2023).
Photon Media Playlist: “#RadOnc #MedEd”
The Accelerators are lucky to know a handful of exceptional teachers, and they’ve donated their time to help you learn. This collection of podcasts offers an entertaining and comprehensive review of several important oncology topics.
The Accelerators, “See You on Twitter!”: Esophageal Cancer Radiotherapy With Krish and Yasamin. The Accelerators host Mayo Clinic Radiation Oncology GI specialist Dr. Krishan Jethwa and PGY-3 resident Dr. Yasamin Sharifzadeh for a data-driven conversation about radiotherapy for esophageal cancer.
The Accelerators, On Radiotherapy for Liver Tumors, Part 1 and Part 2. Radiation Oncologists Drs. Krish Jethwa, Neil Newman, and Jeff Ryckman join Matt Spraker for a 2-part comprehensive lesson on radiotherapy for liver tumors.
The Accelerators, “We Tried Adding the Mustard”: Rectal Cancer With Nina. Drs. Matt Spraker and Simul Parikh had a lunch time lesson in radiotherapy for rectal cancer with THE Dr. Nina Sanford. Lucky for you, we recorded it.
The Accelerators, Radiotherapy for Prostate Cancer Around The Globe, Part 1 and Part 2. The Accelerators are joined by international prostate cancer experts Drs. Alison Tree (The Royal Marsden NHS, UK), Vedang Murthy (Tata Memorial Centre Mumbai, India), and Himanshu Nagar (New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell and Brooklyn Methodist, NYC) for an educational and informative discussion.
The Accelerators, The MIRAGE Trial with Amar and Brett. Radiation oncologist Dr. Amar Kishan and Brett Sloman, Product Sales Director at Viewray, Inc. join the show to discuss the MIRAGE trial of MR-guided versus CT-guided SBRT for prostate cancer.
The Accelerators, Addressing Radiotherapy Disparities With the Suneja Lab. Radiation Oncologists Dr. Gita Suneja and PGY-5 resident Dr. Ryan Hutten join the show to discuss their publication examining disparities in initiation of advanced radiotherapy between White patients and patients of minoritized groups. How can we act on such research? Learn from some of the greats!
The Accelerators, Accelerators X ATB: Podcasting and the Future of MedEd with Trudy and Josh. This is, like, a bunch of #MedEd podcasters sitting around talking about podcasting. Drs. Trudy Wu and Hyunsoo Joshua No, PGY-4 radiation oncology residents at UCLA and Stanford, join us to get meta!
The Accelerators, Science or ART: Adjuvant Radiotherapy for Resected NSCLC. Gather ‘round kids, Simul invites Dr. Todd Scarbrough on the show to discuss the once controversial topic of adjuvant radiotherapy for resected N2 non-small lung cancer. Should we listen to the science or is it an... ART?
Photon Media Playlist: “The Patient Voice”
Last year the Accelerators hosted patient advocates Julie Johnson and Katie Coleman to explore the patient perspective on clinical trials and mental health.
This year they joined the Photon Media family! On our newest podcast, Oncology Unscripted, Julie and Katie team up with radiation oncologist Dr. Matt Spraker for candid discussions about cancer and treatment.
Here are some episodes that feature the patient perspective:
The Accelerators, On Clinical Trials: The Patient Perspective With Julie and Katie. Matt hosts patient advocates Julie Johnson and Katie Coleman to share their experiences and opinions about clinical trials.
The Accelerators, On Clinical Trials: Patient Education With Julie, Katie, and David. In a follow up to prior episode, Julie, Katie, and Matt host clinical trial patient education expert, Dr. David Grew.
The Accelerators, The Experts Discuss Patients’ Mental Health and Mindfulness. Julie and Katie again join Matt to host Sara Ariaudo, MHA, a former radiation therapist turned patient mindfulness coach and founder of Mindful Based Healing, LLC.
Oncology Unscripted, Second Opinions. In this episode, Julie, Katie, and Matt discuss seeking out second opinions and alternate doctors.
Oncology Unscripted, Julie and Katie Go to ASCO. Julie and Katie travel to ASCO and share their experiences attending the world famous conference.
Photon Media Playlist: “Policy and Organized Medicine”
Physicians must have a voice and some awareness of current events in US cancer care policy. We feel that radiation oncologists can contribute greatly to the field by organizing through medical societies.
Here is a collection of educational and opinion episodes about important topics in organized radiation oncology.
Out Of The Basement, Reflections on ROCR. Dr. Beckta shares his thoughts after ASTRO’s surprise release of the Radiation Oncology Case Rate payment model proposal.
Out Of The Basement, Bill of Health: is ROCR a Legislation Lifeline or a Liability?. On a Friday at 4PM, the first live “town hall” of ROCR took place. Though questions were not actively fielded from attendees, several concerns that have been brought up since the ROCR announcement were discussed. Dr. Beckta explains how we currently have more questions than answers.
Out Of The Basement, ASTRO at the National Cancer Program Meeting. The ASTRO president spoke at the inaugural "President's Cancer Panel" meeting about radiation oncology and ROCR. Dr. Jason Beckta comments on this meeting in his usual “reaction (non)video” style.
The Accelerators, The Problem With ASTRO: Reflections on ROCR and a Plea for a More Open Society. Dr. Matt Spraker shares some thoughts on his experiences with ASTRO and their approach to presenting ROCR to the field.
The Accelerators, “The Emperor Is Just Wearing Underwear”: Common Sense Oncology With Aaron and Chris. Drs. Chris Booth and Aaron Goodman join The Accelerators to discuss their new organization that seeks to promote interventions that measurably improve the lives of patients, Common Sense Oncology.
The Accelerators, “Have They Spent a Day With a Radiation Oncologist?”: In Conversation With Join Luh. The Accelerators host one of radiation oncology’s strongest advocates, Dr. Join Luh. He is a community radiation oncologist with an extensive history working in organized medicine to improve care for his patients.
The Accelerators, “Travel Log”: Simul visits Tata Memorial. In this episode, Simul shares his experience visiting the world-famous Tata Memorial Hospital and contrasts their practices, research, and policies with his experiences in the US.
The Accelerators, A Very Special Episode: RO APM. The RO-APM may be dead, but discussion of payment models is very much alive. Expert guests Anne Hubbard (Director of Health Policy, ASTRO), Dr. Constantine Mantz (Chief Policy Officer, GenesisCare), Dave Adler (Vice President of Advocacy, ASTRO), Dr. Join Luh (Providence Health) and Dr. Tomas Dvorak (Orlando Health Cancer Institute) join The Accelerators to discuss the past, present, and future of payment for radiotherapy services in the US.
Photon Media Playlist: “The Workforce and Workplace”
The radiation oncology “job market” was a founding interest of The Accelerators and Photon Media. Simul’s famous VVPN speech and The Graypeace Article sparked our flagship podcast and inspired our mission to bring balance to discussion of the workforce through mainstream radiation oncology channels.
Later, Dr. Jason Beckta started Out Of The Basement, an educational podcast anchored in radiation medicine. In our unbiased opinion, his show offers the most well-rounded and in-depth commentary on the workforce in our field. Don’t miss the RVU-U episodes, his multi-episode practical series on contracts, billing and coding.
For a taste, we’ve compiled a list of our favorite “job market” episodes below:
The Accelerators, The One About Jobs. One of our most popular podcast episodes. The Accelerators host a #MedEd job market round table with the field’s foremost experts on the topic: Drs. Jason Beckta, Todd Scarbrough, Chirag Shah, and Emma Fields.
The Accelerators, The One About Jobs, Boost: Using Radiation Facility Volumes To Assess the Job Market. Todd returns and brings along data guru Nick Zaorsky for a spin-off conversation on radiotherapy utilization in the US and what the data can tell us about “the job market”.
Out Of The Basement, “Big Mood”. What has prevented open and in-depth analysis of the RadOnc workforce over the last decade? Dr. Jason Beckta explains.
The Accelerators and Out Of The Basement, "RadOnc Workforce: Economic Modeling Strikes Back". An episode so important that it was simul-cast (ha) on both Photon Media platforms. Dr. Todd Scarborough returns to the podcast to discuss ASTRO’s highly anticipated workforce study.
The Accelerators, “LeBron Wasn’t Created in a Day”: Inclusion With Julianne Pollard-Larkin. Dr. Julianne Pollard-Larkin, medical physicist, service chief of the thoracic physics group at MD Anderson Cancer Center, and chair of the EDI Committee of the AAPM joins the show to talk about inclusion in the workplace. Warning, this episode may make you want to quit your job and work for Julie.
The Accelerators, The Sensitive Striver Oncologist: In Conversation With Melody Wilding. Executive coach and Author Melody Wilding joins The Accelerators with Drs. Neil Newman and Christina Henson for a book club on a #RadOnc favorite. We discuss how physicians and leaders can foster mental health at work.
Photon Media Playlist: “The Senior Resident”
Cheers to you, Dr. Senior Resident! You are now a senior. You know your stuff, you’re gearing up for boards, and you’re starting to think about jobs.
We’ve put together a playlist of episodes from Photon Media podcasts to help you transition from supervised to independent practice!
The Accelerators, New Starts: Attendings. The legendary Drs. Jerry Jaboin and Toby Chapman join the show to share tips for the newly graduated radiation oncology attending.
Out Of The Basement, What are the secrets of the elusive “Rad Onc Job” Part 1 and Part 2. Dr. Matt Spraker joins Dr. Jason Beckta to talk about details of what an actual attending job in Radiation Medicine looks like, RVUs, medical director roles, etc.
The Accelerators, "Small Virus": On Community Practice with Anna Paulsson. Dr. Anna Paulsson’s viral tweet about medical society messaging to community practice sparks a beautiful conversation.
The Accelerators, “The One With the Neils”: Advice From the First Year of Practice. A bunch of Neils and Neil-adjacent radiation oncologists discuss their experiences from the first year of independent practice.
The Accelerators, Oral Fixation: Beckta Interviews Matt in a Fireside Chat. Friend-of-the-show Dr. Jason Beckta interviews Accelerator Dr. Matt Spraker in a fireside chat about standardized tests, #RadOnc oral boards, and life as an early career attending.
The Accelerators, A Composite QoL Measure for Rad Onc Happiness. Matt proposes a composite quality of life measure for happiness of radiation oncologists.
Photon Media Playlist: “The Junior Resident”
Welcome to the family, Dr. Junior Resident! There is so much to learn, where do you even start? We’ve assembled a selection of podcasts that we think offer a nice introduction to some important topics.
The Accelerators, New Starts: Residency. The Accelerators host two of our favorite #RadOnc residency program directors, Dr. Christina Henson (University of Oklahoma) and Dr. Sarah McAvoy (University of Maryland). It is the first episode of our flagship podcast and packed with tips and tricks for navigating training.
Out Of The Basement, IGRT Choices Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Dr. Matt Spraker joins host Dr. Jason Beckta for a 3 part practical and high yield mini-series on image guided radiotherapy.
The Accelerators, Ten Things for the Better, Three Things for the Worse. Dr. Simul Parikh shares how he thinks #RadOnc has changed since he trained many, many... many years ago. Most things are better, but a few things are worse.
The Accelerators, Low Dose Radiotherapy for Osteoarthritis (OA) With Austin Dove. Welcome to the rewarding world of radiotherapy for non-malignant condition! Radiation oncologist Dr. Austin Dove joins the show to discuss his review paper on RT for OA in the IJROBP, one of the most read papers of 2022.
Out Of The Basement, How can you start doing low dose radiotherapy for osteoarthritis in your practice? Dr. Matt Spraker joins host Dr. Jason Beckta for a practical episode about osteoarthritis. The discussion includes clinical management, simulation, field design, billing, coding, and more!
Out Of The Basement, BEAM-IT… a new way to write outpatient notes. Dr. Jason Beckta talks Evaluation and Management CPT codes, wRVUs, time-based billing, and how he writes his notes.
The Accelerators, “Dare I Say It”: Psychedelics in Oncology With Daniel. Dr. Simul Parikh hosts Radiation Oncologist Dr. Daniel Koffler to discuss psychedelics in oncology! It’s a journey.
Out Of The Basement, The mystery of how doctors get paid. General societal opinion says doctors + $$ = bad. This attitude means non-clinicians command American healthcare. Ignoring the business of medicine doesn't mean we’ve taken the ethical highroad, it means we have surrendered an essential component of caring for the sick. In this episode, Dr. Beckta helps you start to understand the business of medicine.
The Accelerators Anthology
Last week we announced our “academic” publishing pilot, The Accelerators Anthology. Here are some important details about the project.
The goal of this project is to explore a model for paid authorship and peer review in academic publishing. This project is funded by Photon Media and The Accelerators.
The project will produce a single free digital volume of The Accelerators Anthology. We expect the issue will be published early in Fall 2023. We are exploring options for a single print run, more details will follow.
4 writing mentors will be selected before the submission deadline.
All submitted articles will be anonymized then reviewed by the EIC (Dr. Simul Parikh) and a small group including the 4 writing mentors.
The group will select 4 articles to be included in The Accelerators Anthology volume.
The each author/team will be paired with a writing mentor for peer review and assistance enhancing the article for final publication.
Author/teams will each receive $300, writing mentors will each receive $150.
In order to apply to be a reviewer/mentor or to submit your work, email us at acceleratorsradonc@gmail.com!
Deadline to apply to be a reviewer is July 16th at midnight MST.
Deadline to submit your work is July 31st at midnight MST.
Submission guidelines:
We love all authors, including patients and anyone who works in healthcare.
We welcome submissions regarding any topic related to oncology. Creative exploratory studies, provocative editorials, and clinical practice and process papers encouraged!
Please submit a well arranged manuscript using a common digital format (ex. Microsoft Office, Open Office, Google Docs).
There is no word limit, but we like concise writing.
There is no limit on figures or tables.
My Favorite Audiobooks I Read This Year
The King Of Confidence (Non-fiction)
This is an exciting non-fiction book that reads like a novel. It chronicles the lesser known story of Joseph Strang, a con-man that rose to power in the Mormon Church after Joseph Smith was murdered in the mid-1800s.
Project Hail Mary (Fiction)
A #MedTwitter favorite by Andy Weir, recommended by at least Freddy Escorcia and Mark Shapiro. This sci-fi novel follows a science teacher as he tries to save the world! It’s narrated by Ray Porter, an Audible sci-fi great.
The Disordered Cosmos (Non-fiction)
This book has been recommended by a few, but I saw it in a tweet from Shekinah Elmore. This is the memoir of Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, one of the few Black female tenured physicists in the world. She discusses the history of physics while weaving in her own experiences to share a rich account of how, for better or worse, the scientific work is done. I think this is an essential read for every scientist and laypeople who like to follow scientific discoveries.
A Black And Endless Sky (Fiction)
My partner and I read horror books together, and this was our 2022 Halloween pick. I liked it more than Misery, really. The book follows Jonah and Nelle Talbot on a roadtrip plagued by natural and supernatural problems. If you like Stephen King, give Matthew Lyons a try! Fair warning: the book is very gory.
Soul Of An Octopus (Non-fiction)
This book is about octopuses, but it’s also a narrative of Sy Montgomery learning about octopuses. This touching book will teach you about these fascinating animals but will also make you think about intelligence and consciousness in new ways. This was recommended to me by Sam Day over 4 years ago. Don’t wait as long as I did to read it!
TAP Listener Data
We are officially in to our second year and we could not be more excited about the podcast. The positive response to our show from a an unexpectedly huge range of radiation oncologists and other professionals has been a highlight of each of our careers. Thank you for supporting this effort!
One of our original goals was broaden the range of loud voices in Radiation Oncology. Scientific journal content is mostly written by academics and #RadOnc Twitter “influencers” are overwhelmingly North American male radiation oncologists.
Did we achieve our goal? In my opinion, we’re off to a decent start with a lot of room to improve.
Let’s look at some data.
As of 9/20/22, the Accelerators Podcast has 29 episodes and 13,842 listens. Each episode has a mean of 477 listens, range 368 to 1184.
Here are the counts for the top 5 episodes.
It’s worth noting that there is some time bias as older episodes accumulate listens over time. However, the vast majority of listens come right away. Here is a plot of accumulated listens over time for The One About Jobs:
It’s always fun to share device and app data. Hello to the 24 of you Overcast on iPhone users (not shown), you have excellent taste!
We also decided to look at guest gender diversity. While not sufficient to achieve our goal, it is necessary, and it is a narrow, focused question that can be explored in a blog post.
Here are the number of episodes and mean listens for episodes that had mixed, men-only, and women-only guests. There were two episodes with Anna, Simul and/or I.
Despite intentional efforts to feature guests who are women, 13/29 episodes had all male guests. This could be due to the fact that we have thus far (unintentionally) focused on hosting radiation oncologists and that we find them mostly on Twitter.
Also, we noticed that, on average, episodes with women only guests have less listens than hosts with men only guests. This is true for our episodes where men-only and women-only guest slates covered the same topic (paternal leave “woman” at 383 and “men” at 419).
We do not know the significance of these differences, but we are happy to share the raw data and, of course, talk about it on the show! We also acknowledge that LGBTQ+ issues in Radiation Oncology extend well outside the topic of representation of women on our podcast, and hope to talk about that soon as well.
Finally, we looked at where our listeners are located. We’re happy to announce Houston, TX is #1 in both cancer treatment and listening to The Accelerators Podcast!
Unsurprisingly, the vast majority are listening in from the US (87%).
The remaining 13% of our listens come from over 70 countries! Here are the top 10.
In season 2, we hope to become broader and louder. While amplifying important issues and radiation oncologists will remain a core focus, we hope to host more doctors from outside the US as well as non-physician radiation oncology professionals.
Thanks listeners for the support so far, and we look forward to our future together!
The Photon Media #RadOnc #MedEd Starter Pack
If you’re a PGY-2, you’ve now made it through the welcome parties, boot camps, and the first couple months of radiation oncology clinic. Congratulations! Or maybe you’re a seasoned PGY-5 gearing up to take on this year’s red hot job market. Maybe you’re somewhere in between.
Regardless, we have no doubt you’re learning every day. However, there is no formal curriculum for so many important things!
Enter our podcasts. Check out these favorite episodes to boost your knowledge as we head in to Fall!
What in the world is going on with the #RadOnc job market? These days, it seems impossible to get clear answers! Never fear, we went straight to the best sources and brought them to the studio for an exploration of the issues. Rad Oncs Jason Beckta, Emma Fields, Todd Scarborough, and, of course, Chirag Shah join us for my favorite episode.
For a deeper dive, you can also check out the boost episode with Todd and Nick Zaorsky discussing radiotherapy facility volumes.
I was so excited to be a guest on the first two episodes of Jason Beckta’s new podcast Out Of The Basement. We discussed jobs, contracts, work-life balance, our journeys through #RadOnc and more. If you are job searching right now, these episodes are for you!
In part 2 of our 3 part series on oral boards, Out Of The Basement host Jason Beckta and I discuss our favorite board exam and so much more. Be sure to check out parts 1 and 3, where Simul and I take Jason’s gyn onc section without studying!
New attendings, this episode is for you! If you haven’t yet heard about patient satisfaction scores, I am jealous, and you will soon. But what do they really mean?
In this episode, we are joined by Rad Onc Marsha Haley and MROQC Program Manager Melissa Mietzel to discuss all things quality and “patient sat”.
The most popular episode of The Accelerators Podcast features #RadOnc policy experts Join Luh, Constantine Mantz, Tomas Dvorak and others for a wide ranging discussion of the Radiation Oncology Alternative Payment Model. While the model is dead, payment policy is an evergreen topic. This ep will get you up to speed for our future discussions coming in Season 2.
Simul and #RadOnc resident Austin Dove discuss his review article on radiotherapy for osteoarthritis. Yes, you read that right. Listen to the podcast, read the article, then start to build this in to your practice. The treatment is rewarding, cost effective, and great for patients.
Ok, I’m really lucky. I got to be Jason’s guest again on 3 episodes on image guided radiotherapy. At just 30 minutes a piece, these are packed with high-yield info. I think they are perfect for any Rad Onc struggling to make sense of some aspects of our daily practice.
Have ideas on topics you’d like to hear on our podcasts? Reach out to Jason, Simul, Anna, or I. We’d love to hear from you!