Both the British and American Journals of Psychiatry are now broadcasting their own monthly podcasts that discuss some of the feature articles in each month’s issue.
Unlike many of the articles themselves, the podcasts are freely available to download from the moment they’re released.
The British podcasts are hosted by Dr Raj Persaud and involve interviews with researchers and discussions about the issues raised by their findings.
In contrast, the American podcasts sound like an excessively thorough lecture given by a voice synthesiser.
I suspect the American version is an attempt to produce an audio version of the academic paper, while the British podcasts could probably picked up by non-specialists who could still get an understanding of the area, and by specialists who would enjoy them even if they’d already read the paper itself.
It’s interesting to see how many scientific journals are now creating podcasts to accompany their publication, and hopefully this will make research more widely accessible to the public at large.
Link to British Journal of Psychiatry podcasts.
Link to American Journal of Psychiatry podcasts.
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