Did you hear it yet?
Specifically, have you hunted, loaded, and listened to free MP3-format cancer-content talks, interviews, and seminar panels? They’re offered over the World Wide Web portion of the global public Internet.
Cancer wisdom, working without written words: does this idea sound dissonant to you? Does this suggestion fall flat for you?
There are several “sound” reasons for seeking out cancer-specific podcasts:
1. You can’t beat the price: nearly all are offered free.
2. Easy access: most computers, most portable music players, and some “personal digital assistants” and cellphones have MP3 sound-play functions. And any laptop with wireless modem can grab aural aid without connecting a cable into a wall.
3. Sharing: Remember that Christmas song “/Can You Hear What I Hear?/” (And other faith traditions presumably offer similar sung savvy.) Do you know that new saying “Play it forward,” which advocates sharing helpful information or resources?
Your cancer-patient loved one(s), other caregivers, and patient family members can benefit by either your alerting them to, or actually delivering to them, “goodie” podcasts. Email them either (i) a good cancer-topic (or other) podcast that you’ve found (i.e., as an attachment to your email) or (ii) the specific Web location where they can listen to it or download it (i.e., the particular Web “page,” also known as the “URL” [for “Universal Resource Locator,” in geek-speak]).
(The latter option can be better for longer recordings, which usually generate bigger [so-called “fatter”] digital files. Emailing an attached big MP3 file may be precluded or slowly processed by some email service providers that are free or otherwise bandwidth-rationing.)
4. Time savings: You can combine commuting, cooking, chores, or other tasks with learning by ear. Why not reduce your consumption of ads on radio or television by harvesting further cancer knowledge?
5. Added absorption (i.e., better understanding and retention), anyone?: Educators, cognitive scientists, and others assert that individuals vary in their “learning style.” The “neuro-linguistic programming” niche of psychology asserts that people each prefer one of the five senses. Maybe you or your cancer contacts will digest, “grok,” or appreciate communication more or faster via ear than eye?
6. New paths and possibilities. Maybe a podcast will alert you to current or upcoming clinical trials and relevant research. We found our current lead oncologist via mining MP3s many months after a specialty-topic cancer conference concluded.
So, how do you begin? Where can I hear more?
The writer’s recent hearing enhancement initiative, which pleases his cancer-patient loved one when it’s actually used!
If you’ve “heard” my “why” idea, let’s go to “how” and “where.” So where do I get these golden audio nuggets?
1. “Word of mouth” is always a useful knowledge-gathering strategy. Ask smart, studied, veteran cancer patients, caregivers and Internet-savvy medical professionals for recommendations. (Have you chatted up your hospital librarian lately?)
2. “Work the Web.” Googling a -combination- of terms generates Web sites containing each of your interest terms (or, for very narrow/complex searches, most or many). Use the all-capital-letters word “and” command (i.e., “AND”) to instruct the search engine that you only want sites and content that contain -each- of your specified words and/or phrases. Specify the particular type and stage of cancer that is your interest. For example, Googling “MP3 AND podcast AND breast cancer” AND metastatic” can help you narrow your results (“hits”) to more-likely-useful stuff. In your Web-search, substitute “stage __” for “metastatic” and your cancer type for “breast cancer” in the prior example “search string.” You might add the type of treatment, hospital, diagnosis, molecular term, or other points you’re researching. (In my family, helpful breast cancer content MP3s from www.LBBC.org, www.MBCnetwork.org, [for those braving highly technical, stylized researcher-talk] www.SABCS.org, and other sites have been godsends.)
3. Study your favorite Web site’s site map, content, and navigation. Many organizations, businesses, and universities are adding podcasts to their prior text-only Web sites. If you’ve already found good word information on some sites, go back periodically and see if podcasts are a later-added feature there.
Yes, some events are recorded without the expertise and equipment of an experienced audio engineer, resulting in some hard-to-hear parts. That’s the purpose of the volume control on your podplayer or (for those with hearing aids inside the ear) computer speakers.
Any downside? So far, I’ve only identified one small concern. Some podcasts are produced and distributed without a clear, initial statement of the date, context, and speaker(s). It’s best to know when a particular cancer podcast was recorded, because future research, trials, and peer analysis might (and hopefully will) yield new, different data, experiments, or treatments, possibly render some portion of the content misleading or obsolete. So I modify the file name of a podcast after downloading it, to note the date, speaker(s), sponsor, URL, and other identifying information, before sharing or storing it.*
Here’s hoping hearing modern digital content will be music to your cancer-caregiver ears.
* There are copyright law compliance concerns with digitally recorded works (e.g., music and movies). This post only addresses verbal, medical content, usually released by medical associations, cancer education organizations, universities, and other non-profits.
