Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Gopi Shah and Dr. Ashley Agan.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Dr. Agan: When I was a medical student, I had the opportunity to scrub in with an Otolaryngologist during my surgery rotation, and I really loved the anatomy. Later, during my Otolaryngology rotation, I fell in love with the specialty. You get to take care of patients of all ages. Some patients need longitudinal care, and you can take care of them for years and get to know them. Other patients are cured with procedures, and you can make them feel better almost instantly. As a bonus, we have a lot of really cool technology with scopes and micro-instruments, which allow us to operate with minimally invasive techniques that allow for faster healing and better patient experiences.
Dr. Shah: When I was growing up in Shreveport, one of my close family friends had head/neck cancer, and I learned about the ENT field through a patient’s perspective, which has been very valuable to my practice.
Dr. Agan: We met when Dr. Shah was the pediatric ENT fellow and I was a 3rd-year ENT resident. I always enjoyed working with her. She has an amazing work ethic and is one of those people who just lights up a room. Our friendship deepened when we were both at a Pediatric ENT conference in Puerto Rico. We bonded at a rum luau and danced the night away!
Dr. Shah: I would agree I fell in love with Ash at the rum luau when she got a hold of a tambourine. But we also remember our first big case together in training. It was an airway reconstruction, where we harvested a rib graft and placed the graft endoscopically to improve a child’s airway. The whole process was very tedious, difficult, and lengthy. It was a great bonding experience and we still talk about it to this day! Currently, we are both professors and colleagues. We frequently collaborate to teach medical students, residents and fellows about clinical and non-clinical topics.
Dr. Agan: Regarding BackTable ENT, we were kicking around the idea of doing our own podcast for about a year before we finally decided to go for it. I am a podcast junkie myself, and I love the way you can tune in to a podcast while also doing something else like driving, running, folding laundry, etc. It provides for more flexibility than a book or a medical journal. I also love that we get to have conversations with experts from all over the world. There is rarely one way to do something in the medical field, and it’s fun to get to hear how other people do things. Then, we get to share that conversation with all of our listeners, which is really cool!
Dr. Shah: Yes, we were both guests on the BackTable podcast (an Interventional Radiology podcast), and we realized the value of broadcasting our conversations with colleagues onto a medical education platform. We officially launched BackTable ENT in September 2020, and our first episode was focused on physician wellness, a topic that we both feel is vital to medical education. Since then, we have received a lot of positive feedback from listeners all over the country!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Dr. Shah: When we first started podcasting, it was inevitable that we felt some fear of judgement. Our podcast and social media platforms are very public, and we were unsure about what our audience would think about the show and whether they would continue to listen every week. It’s gotten easier over time because we always do extensive research on our guests and spend time drafting questions to make the interview as engaging as possible for our listers and our guests.
Dr. Agan: We also had to learn about all of the behind-the-scenes logistical work that goes into producing a high-quality podcast. I had been a podcast listener before, but I didn’t realize how many different components, technology, and edits are required to create good sound quality for our listeners. Our team, and especially our sound engineers do a great job of managing these details.
We’ve been impressed with BackTable ENT Podcast, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Dr. Agan: From the beginning, we wanted to differentiate ourselves by producing medical podcasts that are more conversational. We want it to feel like we are giving the listener a chance to be a fly on the wall for conversations between colleagues that happen after work or at conferences. We never want our shows to sound like lectures because there are already a lot of lectures in medical education. Our guests are experts in their fields, and we want to make their knowledge accessible to all of our listeners, whether they are medical students, residents, practicing ENTs, patients, and all healthcare professionals that work with ENTs.
Dr. Shah: One of our big priorities is to, literally, “share the mic” with people who are underrepresented in our field. We want to keep including more women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ community members on the show. Inclusivity is so important in our field, especially because diverse players can bring unique perspectives and help us approach current ENT problems in different ways. In the future, we would really like to expand our network and invite international guests onto the show. For example, there is a lot of research in endoscopic surgery being done overseas, and it would be great to tap into that knowledge base and share it with our listeners. With our current surgical recording technology and our online platforms, international collaboration is very feasible.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
Dr. Agan: We always bounce ideas off of each other, whether we are working at the hospital or working on the podcast! In a way, we are resources for each other. I also regularly listen to the Rich Roll podcast, which focuses on wellness and personal development. Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend and Freakonomics Radio are also frequently queued up on my phone. I love reading or listening to books as well. Audible is a great way to enjoy books on the go. Gopi and I both enjoyed reading Becoming by Michelle Obama.
Dr. Shah: I really liked Untamed by Glennon Doyle and Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.backtable.com/ent
- Instagram: @_BackTableENT (https://www.instagram.com/_backtableent/)
- Twitter: @_BackTableENT (https://twitter.com/_backtableent)
- Youtube: BackTable ENT (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoI12lCyYggbdB-OC68wGlg)
- SoundCloud: BackTable ENT (https://soundcloud.com/backtableent)
