West Virginia University School of Medicine students are taking medical education beyond the classroom and into conversations with physicians and healthcare professionals across the Mountain State through Mountaineer Medical Hour, a student-led podcast exploring medicine, careers and the unique healthcare needs of West Virginia.
Created by WVU medical student Veronica Gibbons, Mountaineer Medical Hour began from a desire to better understand not only the medical challenges facing West Virginia communities, but also the physicians and healthcare professionals working every day to address them. The podcast operates as a WVU School of Medicine student organization and gives medical students the opportunity to research topics, develop interviews, produce episodes and participate in the editing and publishing process.
The program provides something that textbooks and lectures cannot always capture: the personal stories behind a career in medicine. Through extended conversations with physicians and other healthcare professionals, students learn about specialty choice, career development, mentorship, rural medicine and the realities of caring for patients in communities throughout West Virginia.
For medical students who are still exploring possible specialties and career paths, those conversations can be especially valuable. Episodes offer an opportunity to hear how physicians arrived at their chosen fields, the challenges they encountered along the way and the experiences that continue to shape their approach to patient care. The approximately 45-minute interviews are designed to help humanize the people behind the white coat while introducing students to areas of medicine they may not otherwise encounter during the early years of medical school.
Mountaineer Medical Hour also reflects WVU's strong commitment to healthcare throughout West Virginia. Medical students receive significant exposure to community and rural medicine during their education, including a requirement that students complete at least eight weeks of non-campus-based clinical rotations at community sites within the state. The podcast complements those experiences by allowing students to hear directly from physicians about the communities they serve and the social, economic and environmental factors that influence health.
Among the professionals featured through the project have been physicians working in areas including addiction medicine, rural primary care and a growing variety of medical specialties. Student leaders have traveled within West Virginia to conduct interviews, including conversations with physicians practicing in some of the state's most rural communities. Those discussions can illuminate issues that extend far beyond a diagnosis or treatment plan — from access to healthcare and transportation to environmental conditions and other factors affecting the health of a community.
As the project has grown, so has its geographic reach. Gibbons moved to the WVU School of Medicine Charleston Campus for her third-year clinical rotations in 2026, creating new opportunities to feature physicians and healthcare professionals from Charleston and southern West Virginia while fellow student leaders continue production efforts in Morgantown.
Current student leadership includes Gibbons as president, Reagan Campbell as vice president, Amelia Angotti as secretary, Mikayla Smith as treasurer and Julia Corton as public affairs officer. Together, the students help select topics, research guests, prepare interview questions and scripts, conduct interviews and manage the production and promotion of the podcast.
The experience develops skills that will remain important long after medical school. Preparing an interview requires research and critical thinking, while conducting one requires careful listening, curiosity and the ability to communicate effectively — many of the same qualities essential to building strong physician-patient relationships.
Just as importantly, Mountaineer Medical Hour is creating an archive of the experiences of West Virginia physicians. Each conversation preserves stories about careers, communities, challenges and accomplishments that can educate and inspire future classes of medical students.
The project demonstrates the initiative WVU medical students bring to their education. Rather than limiting learning to lectures, clinical rotations and examinations, these future physicians are seeking out the people who know West Virginia healthcare firsthand and asking them to share what they have learned.
Through Mountaineer Medical Hour, the microphone becomes another educational tool — connecting students with mentors, specialties with future physicians, and the WVU School of Medicine with healthcare stories from communities across the Mountain State.
Most importantly, it gives medical students an opportunity to listen.
And in medicine, learning how to listen may be one of the most important lessons of all.