From time to time I get the occasional email from a certain professorial advocate for our profession, and it is more often than not a significant and interesting communication. Or, alternatively, there is always the possibility he or she might have actually been commandeered to deal decisively with my less-than-timely MOPS inventory. This time, however, the professor suggested I take a look at the Therapeutic Education Collaboration's website.

So, after five years of writing website columns for New Zealand Doctor, and having somewhat resiliently sidestepped the "obvious" website review for a plethora of evidence-based medicine (EBM) sites, I have now succumbed. And, EBM, like Pharmac funding and "cost-effectiveness in drug therapy", had always been a moving ballpark for which I was not going to waste too many of my preciously few remaining unsponged neurons upon.

I have always been content to admit the constraints of evidence-based medicine often seemed to emphasise aspects of medicine which were commonly contradicting the way I liked to deal with my patients. For example, managing the enigmatic condition of ZSH (zoster sine herpete), so elegantly referred to (and I hasten to add gleefully in a rather less than evidence-based fashion) in the Therapeutic Education Collaboration (TEC) podcast item #89 - coincidentally starring the very same professor.

Anyway, I am happy to state categorically that I could yet once again become an advocate for EBM after reviewing this light-hearted and sumptuously entertaining podcasting website, a project of a certain James McCormack at the University of British Columbia's faculty of pharmaceutical sciences in Vancouver.

I am also reliably advised Dr McCormack and his project associate, Michael Allan, will both be attending the RNZCGP conference next month in Christchurch. Dr Allan is associate professor of family practice at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

The site content is rather like a work of art and its podcasts are completely free to access, though there is a very reasonable request for donations.

The great thing about this site also is we don't even need to stare aimlessly at a computer screen during our precious evenings as it is essentially a podcast site with on-screen shownotes.

Our above mentioned professor enjoys the distraction of humour, pearls and PERLS coming via the headphones while stretching the hamstrings on the morning treadmill. And I can see myself doing the same, having tired a little of all those 1980s music DVDs and Paul Henry's irreverence and suboptimal orthodontics.

So, on a more serious note, the TEC issues the following mission statement: "The Therapeutics Education Collaboration podcast is a weekly presentation where practitioners can get evidence-based drug therapy content that is practical, entertaining and promotes healthy scepticism. The information presented, is useful and relevant to physicians, pharmacists, nurses, physician assistants and other health professionals, and can easily be incorporated into day-to-day practice." As at early August, the site was heading towards its first century of podcasts having come out at a rate of around one per week. Looking at the available podcast list gives an immediate link to the iTunes enabling software, which we may or may not have on our PC, but which would be recommended. Unfortunately, the list is a little undescriptive of the archived content of each podcast and the description appears to be a simple replication of the first few spoken words. Nothing that couldn't be fixed easily, however, and there are attention-seeking shownotes provided at the TEC website each week and also provided via e-mail on request.

While I haven't had a chance to listen to more than a couple of podcasts, the shownotes do give a good idea of the breadth of topics covered. I myself, over time perceiving a greater significance of the inflammatory process in active vascular disease and a bit of an advocate for inexpensive comprehensive risk profile "screening", was taken aback by the slightly irreverent reference to the importance of CRP. "Is measuring hs-CRP an important part of a Comprehensive Risk Profile or a Completely Ridiculous Practice?" reads one of the sites "mythbusted" items. Their list of "busted myths" is better than curious and their humour is timely.

Some of the other "myths" which TEC has tackled include delightfully enigmatic clinical brainteasers such as: what is the point of measuring blood glucose in type 2 diabetics not on insulin - does it really not do much except create worry? And, do you actually have to take antibiotics until they are all gone or do we just give antibiotics for seven and 10 days because six and nine days is ridiculous?

So, all in all, I think if we haven't yet got to grips with the potential of clinical podcasting now may be a good time to give it a go. Stick 20 or 30 of these little 15-minute sound bites onto a USB flash drive or a CD and away we go.