Live from CHEST 2025: Attend recordings of pulmonary, critical care podcasts

Medical podcasts have captured the attention of health care professionals around the world thanks to their engaging blend of education and entertainment. Annual meeting attendees once again have an opportunity to attend live recordings of some well-known pulmonary and critical care podcasts at CHEST 2025.

Behind the mic with the Critical Care Time podcasters

Cyrus Askin, MD, and Nick Mark, MD, start their recording with Shawna Pandya, MD, and kick off the 40th episode of their Critical Care Time podcast with a discussion about microgravity and medical research.

It’s a natural opening theme considering Dr. Pandya is Canada’s first female commercial astronaut and a thought leader in the effort to develop equipment and procedures to overcome the operational challenges of medical care during prolonged space exploration.

But once the podcast team learns that Dr. Pandya is also a practicing rural emergency physician who serves more than 30 sites across remote areas of Alberta, the conversation quickly shifts to other themes: how advances in emergency medical care in space are applicable to remote rural telecare; Soviet physician Leonid Rogozov’s 1961 auto-appendectomy in an isolated Antarctic scientific base; the development of dosage-delivery applications for use in both ICUs and on the International Space Station; and how research on the robustness of “adorable, jacked-up, muscular mutant mice” in space is revealing insights into muscular atrophy, bone density loss, and pathologies such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

“So I need to get huge like a yoked mouse,” Dr. Askin jokes before the conversation turns serious again with a discussion about how this research might guide ICU teams to care for patients who are less mobile, and how conclusions from the space-murine study might apply to rehabilitation therapy.

This type of free-ranging conversation—equally erudite and entertaining—represents the blend of medical knowledge and levity that Drs. Askin and Mark have fostered since their podcast launched in August 2023.

Critical Care Time in particular appeals to ICU team members and other emergency medicine professionals because it approaches the theme with what Dr. Askin calls “home cooking”—a genuine dialogue between two colleagues and friends who share pride in their work, respect for how others are advancing the field, and an eager curiosity to learn from their guests.

At CHEST 2025, Dr. Mark said he’s looking forward to a new learning opportunity—the chance to spontaneously experience “aha” moments of insight with a room full of experts as they record a panel and audience discussion of selected case studies. “The energy and the excitement of having this audience in the room will be fantastic,” he said.

“Or, if we just re-create the Star Wars Holiday Special, then we’ll have done a good job,” Dr. Askin deadpanned.