Haley Bayne and Caity Decara—both members of the UVM Larner College of Medicine graduating class of 2026—hosted the Green Mountain Medicine podcast during med school.
In this blog post, Drs. Bayne and Decara describe their time as podcast hosts—from what led them to their show, to where it took them, to what’s next.
“It gave us a creative project that belonged to both of us. It gave us a platform to laugh, learn, and fall in love with medicine … Now that should be on some wall decor found at HomeGoods.”
Med School Meets Showbiz
There are certain roles in medical school that people expect future internists to gravitate toward: research, leadership positions, maybe advocacy work. And then there was us. Two medical students who somehow became co-hosts of a statewide internal medicine podcast. Please hold the applause.
Honestly, it made perfect sense.
Long before medicine, Haley spent high school, just out Boston, MA, hunched over newspaper layouts and interview transcripts for her school’s newspaper, The Sagamore (now The Cypress), learning how much stories matter in good journalism. At that point, Haley was basically Andy Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada. Meanwhile, Caity was spending her childhood in musical theatre on Long Island, NY, learning timing, confidence, and how to hold an audience’s attention. She was also receiving a parallel education in pizza, bagels, and the uniquely Long Island art of speaking at a volume that other regions occasionally interpret as yelling. Neither of us knew those lessons would end up leading us to a life of podcasting.
By the time we arrived at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine, we had become known, lovingly we hope, as people who brought energy to a room. Maybe not quite the “personality hires” of the class, but definitely among the classmates most likely to volunteer for anything involving a microphone, conversation, or public speaking.
That reputation eventually led us to the Green Mountain Medicine podcast, an American College of Physicians (ACP) Vermont-backed podcast focused on highlighting physicians, educators, and stories across medicine. The podcast itself was handed down through generations of students before us, and we were lucky to inherit something that already had a strong foundation. We still remember one of our earliest introductory meetings with Dr. Samantha Schuetz, Class of 2023, who helped orient us to what podcasting in medicine could actually look like. At the time, the whole process felt surprisingly intimidating. Recording equipment, editing software, guest outreach, scheduling logistics, and episode structure all had to somehow fit around anatomy exams and learning the Krebs cycle.
How to Make a Podcast 101
A lot more goes into each episode than we initially expected. The actual interview is only one small part. Most of the work happened behind the scenes, from brainstorming questions and coordinating schedules to editing audio and piecing episodes together between classes and rotations.
Every interview started with the idea of what do the listeners want to hear? We drafted questions, rewrote those same questions, coordinated schedules to record, filmed episodes, edited audio, wrote introductions, and figured things out as we went. It was a lot of trial and error. Over time, we realized the best conversations were unscripted; the ones that brought out the raw humanity and relatability in our guests.
Some of our favorite interviews reflected exactly that. Interviewing Dr. LeeAnna Burgess gave listeners a window into hospital medicine that felt honest. Conversations with Dr. Matthew Gilbert balanced clinical expertise with humor that made complicated topics feel accessible. We found ourselves increasingly drawn to guests who could talk not only about medicine, but also about identity, burnout, mentorship, growth, and the lives physicians build outside the hospital.
As the podcast evolved, so did we.
We shortened episodes to make them easier to fit into daily routines. Being award-winning multitaskers ourselves, we wanted a podcast that you could listen to while you washed the dishes, walked the dog, or begrudgingly cleaned out that fridge. We experimented with pacing and structure. Toward the end of our time as hosts, we introduced rapid-fire questions, which often became our favorite part of each episode because they allowed guests to exhale a bit and show more of their personality. Those moments mattered because they reminded listeners that medicine encompasses real people, just with some fancy letters attached to their name.
Expect the Unexpected
Perhaps the most meaningful part of the experience, though, had very little to do with podcast metrics or editing techniques.
It was the friendship.
Medical school can compress time in strange ways. Some friendships seem expedited from the camaraderie of quizzing each other in anatomy labs, surviving difficult rotations, and supporting each other in the shared uncertainty of becoming doctors. Co-hosting the podcast gave us something beyond medicine alone. It gave us a creative project that belonged to both of us. It gave us a platform to laugh, learn, and fall in love with medicine … Now that should be on some wall decor found at HomeGoods.
Years from now, we will probably remember very little about the exact editing software we used or how many episodes we recorded. But we will most definitely remember sitting together on Zoom after long days on rotations laughing at something we said. We will remember the privilege of hearing physicians tell stories they might not otherwise have shared, and the way those conversations made us feel. And most importantly, we will remember that although medicine is both an art and a science, it is the art that makes us human. As more rapid technological advancements and artificial intelligence risk dehumanizing patient care, the art piece becomes indispensable, and humanistic qualities like active listening, compassion, humor, presence, and humility become more important than ever before.
Thanks for Tuning In
As residency begins and life inevitably becomes busier, we both hope this is not the end of creative work in our careers. We are grateful for our time with the podcast, but also recognize that every ending has a new beginning. It is time for a new cohort to spread their ideas, share their voice, and create art, so we’d love to introduce the new minds behind the Green Mountain Medicine podcast: Selena Henry, Daron Forohar, and Brandon Lawson!
Whether through podcasting, writing, storytelling, education, or entirely new projects we have not imagined yet, we want to keep finding ways to connect with people beyond the walls of the hospital and cannot wait to see where the GMM podcast goes from here!
Enter our famous outro: All right folks, thanks for tuning in. I’m Haley and I’m Caity. If you’re still here, thanks for sticking with us. That’s it for today on the Green Mountain Medicine podcast. Sorry, force of habit.
