Nurses spend much of their careers updating and revamping their knowledge and skills in continuing education programs. One amazing and completely effortless way to keep your terminology and know-how fresh is to listen to podcasts created by medical professionals. Not only informative and up-to-date, but podcasts are additionally short, easy to digest, and often entertaining.

We’ve compiled a list of our top favorite podcasts relevant to nurses and medical professionals. Some are educational, some deal with nursing culture and news, and others are just plain fun. Whatever your taste, these quick-listens can be consumed on your commute to and from work, on a break, or even as your bedtime entertainment. Whenever and wherever you decide, make your downtime both diverting and productive with a nursing podcast that’s right for you.

Top Nursing Podcasts

  1. The Handover Nursing Podcast: This Australian podcast from Ausmed uses storytelling to explore relevant topics and events in the world of nursing. One of many professional-development podcasts and programs offered by Ausmed, this NPR-style series explores both contemporary issues and stories, as well as historical practices and oddities. Always entertaining, always informative, this archived short-series is one that you should definitely check out.
  2. Real Talk School of Nursing: Hosted by two nursing students, this plain-speaking podcasts offers a sympathetic conversation-style listen where everything adjacent to the classrooms of a nursing school experience is on the table. They discuss not only what they’re learning, but how their lives, relationships, and selves affect their training and well-being while in school. This podcast is fun and full of heart, and a must-listen for any nursing student or nostalgic RN.
  3. Sawbones Podcast: A self described “…Martial Tour of Misguided Medicine.” This comedic medical podcasts, hosted by Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband, podcaster Justin McElroy, will have you in stitches. The duo guide their audience through all the weird, gross, sometimes downright horrific historical practices of medicine, and discuss where science has fallen short in caring for the human body. If you like learning from history’s mistakes, this is the podcast for you.
  4. TedTalks Health: TED Talks has a reputation for greatness, both in information and entertainment value, and this podcast is no different. Expert doctors, researchers, and medical professionals at the cutting edge of medicine address anything in between racism in medicine, the relationship between diet and anxiety, nanotechnology for early detection of cancer, and what doctors worry about. This is perhaps the most up-to-date information a nurse can get in 30-minute sound bytes. Give it a listen if you want to stay ahead of the medicinal curve.
  5. Correctional Nursing Today Podcast: If you work in a correctional facility — or if you’re curious — this podcast should be on your Required Listening list. Hosted by Dr. Lorry Schoenly, RN, takes you behind bars and into the world of prison nursing. Brilliant and revealing, Schoenly demonstrates the Nightingale virtue of compassion as she discusses how nurses can make a difference while working in the prison and juvenile corrections system. Topics range from stress relieving techniques for nurses, to the benefits of breast pumping behind bars; from the ethics of nursing in jail, to preventing rehospitalization of people in prison. Archived in 2018, listeners may still download episodes from the Correctional Nurse website.
  6. Good Nurse Bad Nurse: This fun and informative podcast uses a storytelling format to discuss both the light and the dark sides of medical practice. Hosted by two registered nurses, they spend the hour breaking down right and wrong, righteous and evil, good and bad in all things nursing with one story of correct administration and care, followed by one fraught with mistakes (and sometimes sinister motivation.) Updating once a week, this podcast offers critical and practical information about best practices in nursing, wrapped up with an entertaining and listenable bow.
  7. Nursing Continuing Education Podcast: Created by professionals at Nurse.com, this series offers real CE credit and certification for a small registration fee. Most episodes are worth one CE contact hour. Covering often unusual topics, the hosts discuss relevant and up-to-date information that is practical, useful, and vital to effective nursing. Topics span primary health concerns, systemic effects of illicit drugs, time management skills for nurses, and surgical care improvement. Stranger topics include cultural negotiation and treatment of religious patients, the end of antibiotic usage, and Oppositional Defiant Disorder – a mental health issue affecting children and young adults. If you’re busy and need to up your CE credits, start listening to this quality podcast today.

If you have downtime that needs filling, check out any of these top nursing podcasts to listen, laugh, and learn while at home or on the go.

Need other tools to bolster your continuing education? Check out another article by Medely, Anatomy Study Guides for Nurse Students for books, programs, and games that will keep your knowledge and terminology scalpel-sharp. Medely is a platform that helps nurses set their own schedules and work on their own terms by delivering per-diem opportunities right to your phone. If you want a schedule that’s easier on your nerves, you can sign up here for free.