Today marked a big milestone for the EM Basic podcast

One million downloads.  I look at that number and I seriously can’t believe it.

First of all- a few thanks are in order.  Thanks first to Christin, my wife, who has been there since day one (when I had the idea for the podcast while walking our two dogs) and has done everything she can to support this project.  She is always there to listen to my many crazy ideas and provide sound advice- especially in anything pediatrics (her specialty- soon to be Peds critical care).

Thanks also to those who have supported the podcast through submissions to the EM Basic project.  Your help has been invaluable in continuing the podcast with fresh ideas and input.  Thanks especially to Dr. Andrea Sarchi who has been the workhorse as of late by providing scripts for five episodes- two of which are yet to be published.

Finally, thank you to all the listeners out there who give me the motivation to continue this project.  Each episode takes a lot of work but it’s incredibly rewarding to see the download stats continue to climb.  Even more rewarding are the emails that I get saying how much the podcast has helped out in people’s everyday practice of EM.

I did this post not to brag about numbers (I’ve got nothing on EMCrit– we’re talking orders of magnitude…) but to say thank you and to also show how far FOAMed has come in the past few years.  I started this podcast about 3.5 years ago.  I relied on word of mouth and a few recommendations from established websites like Life in the Fast Lane and shout-outs from the gurus like Rob Orman from ercast to get it off the ground.

Since I started EM Basic, there has been an explosion of FOAMed in all areas of EM.  We still have a long way to go in terms of covering the less flashy topics but we are making progress.  For example, FOAMcast (another EM core content podcast) recently announced that they hit the 50,000 download mark in about 6 months.  It took me more than a year to do the same with EM Basic.  We have now created a network of knowledge sharing that allows new quality FOAMed to be rapidly distributed and disseminated to all corners of the earth (literally- I can confirm at least one download from Antartica!).

That’s all I’ll say about stats- forever.  Among podcasters, it seems like the first rule of podcasting is you don’t talk about your download stats.  The second rule of podcasting is…well, you know.  That’s also it for the philosophizing.  As I said before- I don’t do this to brag but to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has helped this project along the way.  I hope to continue this project for a long time and I’ll be counting on your support and contributions to keep it going.

Take care and remember- as Mel Herbert (the god of all EM podcasting) says- What you do matters…

Steve

steve@embasic.org