medical school

Starting a Company as a Medical Student: Part 2

~ cmonsen ~ Leave a comment

Last week I included my answers to several questions I was asked as part of an interview for The Doctor’s Channel about entrepreneurship as a medical student. You can read that post at Starting a company as a medical student: Part 1.

This week I will finish the 2-part series with answers to the questions:

  1. How did your school admin respond to your request to take a year off for your start-up?
  2. How did you juggle the challenges of running a business with the rigor of being a medical student?
  3. What are some of the skills/lessons you’ve learned while running a business that a typical student would never even think of?
  4. How do you see your decision to launch a business in medical school influencing your future career (residency application, specialty choice, lifestyle, etc.)?

Continue reading Starting a Company as a Medical Student: Part 2 on the Symcat blog.

Starting a Company as a Medical Student: Part 1

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We were recently asked by The Doctor’s Channel to share some of our thoughts about being an entrepreneur while in medical school and how that came about. It’s not easy to take the plunge into starting a business with so much medical training already behind you and so much to go.

Here our some of my answers the the questions we are typically asked about starting Symcat while in medical school. Since there are a lot, I’m splitting it up into a two-part series. This week I will be answering

  • Did you have prior experience in business/start-ups before launching your own?
  • Before you started medical school, did you have any feeling that you would be starting a business while still in school?
  • At what point did you start thinking your idea could be scaled from just your school to medical schools across the US?
  • Can you tell me how you made the tough decision of taking time off from school and the different pros/cons you weighed?

Continue reading Starting a Company as a Medical Student: Part 1 on the Symcat blog.

The Real Problem with Physician Decision Support

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Early in medical school, I was involved in the care of Ted, who could have been my grandfather. At 76 he was as spry as any of the patients on the ward and always welcomed me with a “morning, Doc!” He was admitted because he was having concerning chest pain several times a week. Opening and closing 2.8 billion times throughout his life, his heart valves had gradually become hard and inflexible preventing blood from leaving at its usual rate. Now, it was risking his life. He had several treatment options available to him: valve replacement through open-heart surgery, a new minimally-invasive procedure where they snaked a new valve through the body’s blood vessels and into the heart, or just taking medications to help with his symptoms. It was my job to help Ted figure out which option was best for him.

Continued reading The Real Problem with Physician Decision Support on the Symcat blog.

Stroke in AVS App

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Introduction

Screenshot 2015-07-11 22.15.36Each year, half a million patients present to emergency departments in the US with acute vestibular syndrome (AVS) characterized by vertigo lasting more than 24 hours. Though this is frequently caused by something benign such as a self-limited viral infection, it may also indicate a more severe condition such as stroke of the posterior circulation. Unfortunately, MRI can miss strokes when obtained early in the disease course meaning half of those with with posterior strokes are inappropriately sent home from the ER. Continue reading →