The Backstory Podcast

The Backstory Podcast logo in black ink, with transparent background, "Back Story" font stylized to look sketched and an illustration of a sketched pen on the right with the link drawing of a microphone underneath text

In Health Professions Education, there’s always more to the story. It’s just how far back you’re willing to go.

Now live!

Join hosts Drs. Hannah Kakara Anderson, Justin Bullock, and Ben Kinnear and guest scholars in a co-creative format as they go behind the scenes. Learn from scholars themselves as they tell their backstories: all the decisions, moments, and emotions that are critical but often silent and invisible in the final, polished manuscripts or conference presentations.

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From left to right, Ben Kinnear (white male), Hannah Karara Anderson (latina female) and Justin Bullock (african american male) smiling for a group picture at night in downtown Chicago with skyscrapers
Photo: the first meeting of The Backstory Podcast, Chicago, IL, 2024

From the Hosts

Headshot of Dr. Hannah Kakara-Anderson, white presenting latina smiling wearing dark green blazer and black blouse

The Backstory podcast will keep you informed about cutting edge health professions education research while also giving a behind-the-scenes look at the thinking and process of a diverse range of Health Professions Education (HPE) scholars.

Hannah Kakara-Anderson, PhD, MBA

Dr. Justin Bullock, african american male, headshot photo smiling wearing green jacket

We are a medical education podcast that explores literature in Health Professions Education. Providing you with cutting edge scholarship and cozy conversation with the authors.

Justin Bullock, MD, MPH

Headshot of Dr. Ben Kinnear, white male with beard and wearing navy blue suit and white dress shirt with yellow and blue tie

“Does the world need another podcast? Yes! HPE podcasts have helped build community, keep people informed, and are just fun to listen to. In early 2025, one of our favorite podcasts recorded its final episode, and we felt like we lost something important. The Backstory podcast is a way to continue keeping you informed on HPE scholarship, but with a twist.”

Ben Kinnear, MD, PhD, MEd

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Accessibility Statement

The Backstory Podcast is dedicated to humanizing Health Professions Education and as part of that, we want to make sure everyone in our audience can access our resources. We are actively working towards WCAG 2.2 Level AA accessibility compliance. This website was audited with the following testing tools: NVDA Windows screen reader and WAVE – Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool browser extension. We don’t use AI tools for this podcast as we make an intentional effort to keep people centered in this work.  We employ experts to review for accessibility and we work with Academic Audio Transcriptions for the transcriptions of our podcast.

Please contact us via backstory@learningdesigncollective.com with any issues you may encounter.