How It Works Origin FAQ OSLR
Open in Telegram

For residents and fellows

Your Clinical Questions.
Answered in Audio.

Text a topic you saw in clinic today. Curbside researches it and drops a 5-minute podcast episode in your personal feed before your next commute.

Message @oslrcurbsidebot

Free for residents and fellows. Takes 30 seconds to set up.

How it works

Three Steps to
Learning on the Go

1
Step 1

Send a topic

See something in clinic you want to learn more about? Text or voice message it to the Curbside bot on Telegram. That's the whole workflow.

2
Step 2

We do the research

Curbside pulls from medical literature, synthesizes the key points, and records a 5-minute audio episode. Citations go in the show notes.

3
Step 3

Listen on your commute

Episodes land in your personal podcast feed. Open your podcast app, hit 2x speed, and actually retain what you saw today.

Why this exists

The index card method, minus the part that never happens

During residency, an attending told me to carry an index card in my pocket. Write down three things I encountered that day and needed to learn more about. Read about them every night.

I did it on and off for years. Identifying the gaps was never the problem. Sitting down to read after a 14-hour shift was the problem.

Curbside keeps the part that works (capturing topics during your day) and swaps out the part that doesn't (reading when you're wiped) with something you already do: listening on the drive home.

Tweet by Ryan Stewart: Best piece of advice I got as an incoming intern. Carry a single index card in your pocket.
Part of the OSLR ecosystem

Built by the team behind OSLR

OSLR turns medical journals into 3-minute audio summaries so physicians can stay current without the reading pile. Over 33,000 journals. Delivered to your podcast app.

Curbside takes the same idea in a different direction. Instead of summarizing what journals publish, it researches whatever you ask. Your clinical encounters become your curriculum.

Learn more about OSLR →

FAQ

Questions & Answers

Two reasons. First, every episode costs us real money to generate (AI research, text-to-speech, hosting), so we need to make sure the people using it are the people it was built for. Second, your NPI confirms you're a physician in training. We check it once during setup and don't store anything beyond the number. No patient data is involved at any point.

Type /feed in the bot to get your personal RSS link. Copy it, then open your podcast app and look for "Add by URL" or "Add RSS feed." The exact steps depend on your app: in Apple Podcasts, it's Library > menu > Follow a Show by URL. In Pocket Casts, tap Search and paste the link. In Overcast, tap Add > Add URL. Once you add it, new episodes show up automatically.

Not directly. Spotify doesn't let you add custom RSS feeds. But it works with Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Overcast, AntennaPod, Podcast Addict, and any other app that accepts RSS. If you already listen to medical podcasts, you probably have one of these installed.

Each episode is AI-researched from medical literature and includes citations in the show notes. It's meant to orient you on a topic and point you toward the right sources. It's not a replacement for UpToDate, your program's didactics, or your attending's clinical judgment. When something sounds important, check the citations.

Around 5 minutes at 1x speed. Most residents listen at 1.5x or 2x, so closer to 2.5 to 3 minutes per episode. Three topics a day works out to about 8 to 15 minutes total, depending on how fast you like your audio.

Zero friction. No new app to build, no login to create, no password to remember. You send a message, you get an episode. A lot of residency programs already use Telegram for group communication, so there's a good chance it's on your phone. If not, it takes about 30 seconds to set up.

OSLR watches the journals you follow and sends you audio summaries when new papers come out. The journals decide the topics. With Curbside, you decide the topics. You send whatever you encountered in clinic today, and it researches that specific thing. OSLR keeps you current with the literature. Curbside fills the gaps you find on the floor.

Yes. Free for residents and fellows, three topics per day. We built this because we lived the problem during training and wanted to fix it.

Start Learning
on Your Commute

Send your first topic today. Your episode will be ready before you leave the hospital.

Open Curbside in Telegram

Free for residents and fellows.