The 32 Best Medical Podcasts (2026)

Anthony William's health advice comes from what he describes as a spiritual gift for understanding the body, which means you either accept that premise or you don't. Mainstream medicine is skeptical at best. His following is enormous and passionate. The dietary and supplement recommendations have helped some people and been dismissed by others. Including this without comment feels irresponsible, but so does pretending it doesn't have millions of listeners. Approach with critical thinking. Cross-reference with medical professionals. Make your own decisions. That's good advice for all health content, honestly.

Spanish medical vocabulary and phrases for healthcare workers who need to communicate with Spanish-speaking patients. Each episode focuses on a specific clinical scenario - taking a history, explaining a diagnosis, discussing medications - and teaches the language needed to navigate it effectively. Incredibly practical resource that fills a gap most language courses completely ignore. For bilingual healthcare settings where communication barriers directly affect patient outcomes, this is more than educational content - it's a tool that makes people's care better.

Ian Drummond interviews doctors from every specialty to help med students figure out what they want to be. Each episode is essentially a career counseling session with someone who loves their job enough to talk about it enthusiastically. The 'undifferentiated' framing captures that confusing place of knowing you want to be a doctor but having no idea what kind. Practical guidance for a genuinely difficult decision.

If you work in internal medicine and you haven't found The Curbsiders yet, you're genuinely missing out on one of the most useful medical podcasts around. Hosts Matthew Watto and Paul Williams bring in expert guests each week to break down clinical topics in a way that actually sticks. They've put out over 500 episodes, and the format is refreshingly consistent: a specialist sits down with the hosts, walks through a clinical problem, and drops practical pearls you can use the next day on rounds.

What makes this show stand out from the flood of medical education content is the tone. Watto and Williams are funny without being goofy about it, and they ask the kinds of questions a real clinician would ask -- not just textbook prompts. You'll hear them push back, admit confusion, and genuinely learn alongside the listener. Episodes run about 70 to 90 minutes, which is long, but they pack enough substance that you won't feel like it drags.

The guest list is impressive too. Recent episodes have featured cardiologists, endocrinologists, and sleep medicine researchers from major academic centers. The show has built a loyal following of over 100,000 health professionals per month, and for good reason. It earned a 4.8-star rating across more than 3,200 reviews on Apple Podcasts. If you're a resident, hospitalist, or primary care doc looking for CME-quality content with personality baked in, The Curbsiders is one of the best things you can put in your earbuds during a commute.

When the Journal of the American Medical Association creates a podcast, you're getting research translated into audio by the people who publish the most important medical journal in the world. Studies, clinical findings, treatment protocols, and medical policy - all covered with the authority and rigor you'd expect from JAMA. This isn't wellness content. It's actual medical information presented by and for people who take medicine seriously. Healthcare professionals use it to stay current. Scientifically literate listeners use it to understand what's actually happening in medicine. Serious content for serious consumers.

Two doctors who genuinely like each other talk about medical topics with the kind of humor that apparently gets you through medical school. They explain health concepts clearly enough for non-doctors while being accurate enough for professionals, which is a harder balance than people realize. Not a lecture. More like overhearing two smart friends discuss medicine while cracking each other up. Covers everything from common conditions to bizarre medical cases to current health news. If medical content usually puts you to sleep, these two will keep you both awake and informed.

Emergency Medicine Cases is one of those podcasts that EM physicians swear by, and for good reason. Dr. Anton Helman has been producing this show for years, building up a library of nearly 400 episodes that covers just about every major emergency medicine topic you can think of. The format usually pairs Helman with a specialist -- someone like Dr. Sara Gray on status epilepticus or pediatrics experts on febrile infant protocols -- and they work through cases with a clinical depth that goes well beyond surface-level review.

Episodes typically run between one and one-and-a-half hours, which gives them room to actually unpack a topic properly. There are also shorter "Quick Hits" segments when you just need a focused refresher on a specific skill or protocol. What really sets this podcast apart is the companion material on emergencymedicinecases.com, where you'll find detailed show notes, quizzes, and videos that turn each episode into a mini-course.

Helman's interviewing style is direct and practical. He doesn't waste time on fluff, and his guests are clearly chosen for their ability to teach, not just their credentials. Listeners consistently rank it among the best educational podcasts they've encountered during training, and it stays relevant long after residency.

The show carries a 4.7-star rating from over 500 reviews on Apple Podcasts, and new episodes drop twice a week. For anyone working in emergency departments -- from medical students doing their EM rotation to attending physicians wanting to stay current -- this is essential listening.

Quick, focused episodes covering emergency medicine topics that manage to be educational without being scary. Real clinical scenarios, practical knowledge for healthcare professionals, and enough drama inherent in ER medicine to keep casual listeners interested too. Each episode is mercifully brief, which suits the emergency theme - get in, learn something useful, get out. Good for medical students, EMTs, nurses, or anyone who finds the world of emergency medicine fascinating from a safe distance. The occasional reminder that ER docs are basically making life-or-death decisions on no sleep really hits.

Medical terminology broken down into its building blocks - roots, prefixes, suffixes, and the logic of how they combine. Turns what feels like learning a foreign language into something actually systematic. The subject matter is inherently dry, but the podcast makes it as engaging as medical vocabulary can possibly be. Essential study companion for nursing students, pre-med, or anyone entering healthcare. You'll start recognizing what words mean before anyone explains them, which is exactly the point. Not entertainment. Pure utility for a specific audience that needs it badly.

Sawbones is the show where a family physician and her husband explore all the terrible, bizarre, and sometimes hilarious ways humans have tried to cure themselves throughout history. Dr. Sydnee McElroy handles the medical research while Justin McElroy provides the comedy, and the husband-wife dynamic gives the whole thing an easygoing, living-room feel that keeps you coming back.

Running since 2013 with over 570 episodes under its belt, the show has covered everything from trepanning and bloodletting to modern wellness fads like mushroom coffee and dopamine detoxes. Episodes land weekly and clock in at a comfortable 30 to 50 minutes -- perfect for a lunch break or a quick workout session. The research is solid, and Sydnee has a knack for making genuinely dense medical history accessible without dumbing it down.

Justin's role is more than just comic relief. He asks the questions a non-medical person would ask, which keeps the explanations grounded and prevents things from getting too jargon-heavy. Their chemistry is natural and unforced, and it's clear they actually enjoy making this show together even after more than a decade.

With nearly 15,000 ratings and a 4.8-star average on Apple Podcasts, Sawbones has earned its reputation as one of the most entertaining medical shows available. It's not clinical education in the traditional sense, but it teaches you a surprising amount about why medicine works the way it does today by showing you all the wrong turns we took getting here. Part comedy, part history lesson, entirely worth your time.

The Doctor's Art tackles something that most medical podcasts avoid entirely: what it actually means to be a physician beyond the clinical knowledge. Co-hosts Henry Bair, a resident physician, and Tyler Johnson, an oncologist, sit down each week with healthcare professionals to talk about burnout, empathy, purpose, and the deeply personal side of practicing medicine. It's the kind of show that makes you stop and think about why you got into this field in the first place.

With 165 episodes and counting, the conversations go places you don't expect. One episode features an oncologist discussing what happened when he became his own patient. Another brings in a humanist chaplain to talk about meaning-making at the end of life. The hosts also run occasional panel discussions on topics like technology's impact on the doctor-patient relationship, and these multi-voice episodes have a different energy that works really well.

Episodes run about 50 to 65 minutes, and the pacing feels unhurried in a good way. Bair and Johnson are thoughtful interviewers who clearly prepare for each conversation. They give their guests room to tell real stories without steering everything toward a tidy takeaway.

Stanford Medicine has highlighted this podcast, and it carries a 4.8-star rating from over 260 reviews. It's not a show that will help you pass your boards, but it might help you remember why passing those boards mattered to you. For physicians feeling ground down by the system, or medical students wondering what their career will really look like, The Doctor's Art offers something genuinely nourishing.

Medical education stripped down to its essentials and rebuilt for people who didn't go to med school. Each episode takes a health concept or medical topic and explains it clearly enough that anyone can follow along without a science background. It's like sitting in on the version of med school lectures that were designed for curious outsiders rather than future doctors. Good for anyone who wants to understand their own health better, make more informed decisions, or just satisfy genuine curiosity about how the human body works.

Medical terminology broken down into its building blocks - roots, prefixes, suffixes, and the logic of how they combine. Turns what feels like learning a foreign language into something actually systematic. The subject matter is inherently dry, but the podcast makes it as engaging as medical vocabulary can possibly be. Essential study companion for nursing students, pre-med, or anyone entering healthcare. You'll start recognizing what words mean before anyone explains them, which is exactly the point. Not entertainment. Pure utility for a specific audience that needs it badly.

Symptomatic takes the medical mystery format and turns it into something genuinely gripping. Hosted by Lauren Bright Pacheco, each episode follows a real patient from the first confusing symptoms through rounds of misdiagnosis and failed treatments, all the way to that moment when someone finally figures out what's going on. It's structured like a detective story, but the stakes are a person's health and sanity.

The show is produced by iHeartPodcasts and has run for four seasons so far, with about 45 episodes total. Episodes land every other week and run around 38 to 48 minutes, which hits a sweet spot -- long enough to build real tension, short enough that you can finish one on a commute. Pacheco's narration is measured and clear, letting the medical details speak for themselves without overdramatizing things.

The cases themselves are fascinating. Season 4 featured rockstar Casey McPherson talking about his daughter's rare genetic mutation, and other episodes have involved the Undiagnosed Diseases Network and researchers like Dr. Hugo Bellen. The show doesn't shy away from the emotional toll of living without a diagnosis, and it treats patients as full people rather than just interesting cases.

Healthcare professionals have noted they use episodes for educational discussions, which says a lot about the accuracy of the medical content. With a 4.4-star rating from nearly 580 reviews, Symptomatic appeals to both medical professionals curious about rare conditions and general listeners who love a good story with real consequences. It's compelling audio that happens to teach you something along the way.

If you work in the medical device industry, you already know whether this podcast is for you. FDA compliance, design controls, quality management systems, regulatory strategy - deeply specialized content for professionals navigating one of the most regulated industries on earth. For everyone else, this might as well be in another language. But for its target audience, it's genuinely invaluable. The guests are industry veterans and regulatory experts who understand the real-world challenges of bringing medical devices to market. You either need this or you very much don't.

Deep conversations about herbalism, plant medicine, and our relationship with the botanical world. More philosophical than practical, exploring plants as teachers and allies rather than just ingredients or remedies. For people who see nature as meaningful rather than just useful. The perspective is spiritual without being dogmatic, appreciative without being romanticized. A slower, more contemplative approach to our connection with plants.

Terry Fletcher makes medical billing and coding understandable, which might be the most impressive feat in all of podcasting. A field that baffles most people, even people working in it, broken down with clarity and practical guidance. If you're studying for certification, working in healthcare administration, or just trying to understand why your medical bill makes no sense, this helps. Extremely niche and extremely good at what it does. Not entertainment - it's education for a specific audience, and that audience considers it indispensable.

The MedSpa industry moves fast and this podcast keeps practitioners and business owners current. Treatments, technology, compliance, marketing, patient acquisition, and the aesthetic trends driving the market. For anyone running or considering a medical spa, the business intelligence here is genuinely valuable. Covers both the clinical and commercial sides because in this industry you can't separate them. Niche enough that most people will scroll past, but for its target audience it's one of those 'I wish I'd found this sooner' resources. Industry-specific and proud of it.

Mace Horoff helps medical device and pharmaceutical sales reps get better at a job that's completely unlike selling anything else. Healthcare sales dynamics - navigating hospitals, building physician relationships, understanding clinical needs, compliance requirements - are unique enough that generic sales advice often does more harm than good. The episodes address specific scenarios and techniques that work in medical environments. Targeted, practical, and genuinely useful for people in this particular career. If you sell in healthcare, someone who gets your world is talking to you.

Med-surg nursing concepts broken down clearly for students and practicing nurses who need to understand conditions, treatments, and patient care without drowning in jargon. The episodes work as study companions - listen during your commute and actually retain something useful for clinicals. Systematic coverage that organizes the genuinely massive amount of information nursing programs throw at students. Clear explanations of complicated medical content tailored specifically for nursing practice rather than generic medical education. If you're studying for NCLEX or just trying to survive your med-surg rotation, this is practical help in podcast form.

Memory tricks for medical students drowning in more information than any human brain should reasonably hold. Each episode covers mnemonics for specific concepts - anatomy, pharmacology, disease processes - organized so they actually stick during high-pressure exams. This is genuinely useful during those brutal study stretches when brute force memorization stops working around hour six. The approach is systematic without being boring, which is hard to do with this material. Basically a survival tool disguised as a podcast. If you're in med school and struggling to retain everything, this might be the most practical show in your feed.

An ER physician assistant and his decidedly non-medical friend discuss health topics together, and the dynamic is surprisingly entertaining. The expert explains, the friend asks the dumb questions you were thinking, and somehow medical information becomes genuinely fun to consume. Not your typical dry medical podcast at all. The buddy format makes complex health concepts accessible because one of them literally doesn't understand the jargon either. Good for anyone curious about medical stuff who finds traditional health media boring or intimidating. Funny, informative, and refreshingly unpretentious.

Dr. Kaveh and nurse Lizzie discuss medicine with the humor of people who've seen everything the ER can throw at them and learned to laugh about it. Medical education that doesn't feel like a textbook because it comes from real experience with real patients. The dynamic between doctor and nurse adds perspective that single-host medical podcasts lack. Educational and entertaining in equal measure.

Casual conversations about medical topics between hosts who make health information feel approachable rather than intimidating. They don't pretend to be doctors or replace medical advice. They just help you understand what's happening when your doctor uses words you've never heard. Conditions, treatments, procedures, the body's weird quirks - all explained in the same way a knowledgeable friend would explain it over coffee. Not deep enough for medical professionals. Perfect for everyone else who wants to be a more informed patient without going to medical school.

The business side of running a medical practice - telehealth adoption, regulatory changes, staffing challenges, technology integration, revenue optimization. Deeply specialized content for healthcare administrators and practice owners trying to keep their businesses functional in an industry that never stops changing. If you manage or own a medical practice, the practical information here saves you from learning things the expensive way. If you don't, this will make absolutely no sense to you. Niche content that knows exactly who it serves.

Dr. Thomas Watchman explains medical concepts for students in language that actually makes sense. Each episode tackles one topic and makes it stick with clear explanation and memorable framing. The kind of study resource that makes you wish all textbooks were written this way. For medical students drowning in information who need someone to organize and explain it clearly. An actual doctor who remembers what it was like to be confused.

Medical research and health news delivered in quick daily doses that actually teach you something without requiring a biology degree. Clinical developments, health policy changes, study results that matter - covered with enough detail to be useful and enough brevity to fit into a morning routine. Healthcare professionals use it to stay current. Health-curious listeners use it to understand what's happening in medicine. Both get their money's worth. Consistent, reliable, and the rare medical content that respects your time while still giving you substance.

True crime from inside the medical world - doctors who killed, nurses who harmed, healthcare fraud so brazen it defies belief. The intersection of trust and power in medicine makes these stories uniquely disturbing because we give healthcare workers access to our most vulnerable moments. Each episode investigates a case where that trust was catastrophically betrayed. Dark subject matter handled with journalistic seriousness rather than sensationalism. If you're a true crime fan looking for cases that genuinely shock you, medicine's dark side delivers horrors that no fictional writer would dare invent.

Medical concepts explained at a level that's actually useful for students and curious non-medical people. Anatomy, physiology, common conditions, how medications work - covered with enough detail to genuinely educate without requiring a pre-existing science background. Good for nursing students, pre-med students, EMTs in training, or anyone who wants to understand their own body better than a Google search allows. Not trying to replace textbooks. Filling the gap between knowing nothing and knowing enough to have an informed conversation with your doctor.

Medical students sharing the real experience of medical school - the stress, the studying, the clinical rotations, the moments of doubt that admissions brochures never mention. For aspiring and current med students who need to know they're not alone in finding this impossibly hard. The peer perspective matters because they're going through it together rather than looking back from the safety of being an attending.