Podcasts – Listen to cancer information on your computer.

Podcasts

First things first, what is a podcast and what’s in it for me?  Good question!  Sometimes just keeping up with all the latests gadgets and gizmos is enough to make your head spin.

Well, a podcast is a bit like a radio show, except you can listen to it at any time. You can listen to it on a computer, or you can downloaded it to an MP3 player, the computer company Apple make the most famous MP3 player, called the ipod. An ipod is a bit like a personal stereo, except it doesn’t play tapes or CD’s, instead you put the music onto it using a computer. A podcast is a cross between an ipod and a broadcast i.e a “podcast”.

Podcasts can include music and adverts (although they don’t have to) and are similar to audio books or books on tape. You can pause them, rewind them, or just turn them off if you get bored. Some people take a lot of information in by reading, others prefer to hear something spoken, so if reading screeds of text isn’t for you, try listening to a podcast instead.

Why am I writing about podcasts on a cancer website, well, you may have guessed you can now get cancer podcasts.  I’ll list a few below, but if you know of any more, please leave a comment below.

A List of Cancer Podcasts

Cancer Research UK produce a podcast every month (each one lasts 15-20 minutes) and you can download (or listen to them) here

The American Institute for Cancer Research produce a similar series of podcasts and you can listen to them here

Breast Cancer Care also have a regular podcast, but it can be quite hard to find their list of previous shows, this link should help you out.  On the plus side you can also search for their information in itunes.

There are even podcasts from scientific conferences, the National Cancer Research Institute (for the UK) held it’s meeting in October 2008, in Birmingham, you can find an index here.
There are also podcasts  for young people with cancer, The Great Ormond Street Childrens Hostpital  have a modern and up to date website called “Children First” with information for young people with a whole range of medical conditions (including cancer) you can hear more here.

Finally, although not strictly a podcast, cancer backup (now part of Macmillan) have about 50 different booklets available in audio form, you can find them here.

That should be enough to keep you started, if you like a particular podcast you can “subscribe” so that every time it is updated you can listen to the new show, don’t ask me how, I’ve never quite figured out RSS feeds…