When Jonathan Aguiar (Weinberg ’20, Feinberg ’24) and MD-MBA student Jonathan Theros were in medical school together, they realized study tools in healthcare education weren’t evolving with the times.
They wanted to introduce something new and flexible. Now, the company they founded has surpassed 25,000 signups, Theros said.
Dendritic Health AI offers artificial intelligence tools for healthcare education. Launching its paid product this past December, the startup was co-founded by Aguiar, Theros and University of Michigan graduates Luke Soenen and Trevor Woods.
The company offers online AI-powered study resources like an AI search, an AI lecture notebook with summaries, writing board questions with AI and flashcards powered by AI — all study tools a medical student might need.
It also has a clinical simulator where a student can talk to AI patients to practice care, including ordering labs and deciding what the care management will be.
“You get to kind of be that primary provider for these AI patients, and it’s okay to make mistakes, and it’s okay to practice, and then you get feedback on all of that,” Theros, the company’s CEO said. “Really, we’re looking to be a one stop shop and kind of enable students to study based on their own curriculum and kind of learn all the things they need for starting a residency and being a doctor.”
The target audience is medical and physician assistant students worldwide, Theros said. The tool can use multiple languages.
Aguiar, who is a urology resident at Feinberg, said the response has been “overwhelmingly positive” so far.
“We’ve gotten a lot of buzz on social media and within the med student space,” Aguiar said. “We’ve had students from other universities across the world reach out to us and tell us, ‘Hey, I love your tool. Would love to promote your brand and help you guys out on this mission.’”
MD-MBA student Alan Soetikno, the startup’s head of AI, said that having medical students on board has been a strength.
“We really lean on our own experience as medical students, first and foremost, on what were the pain points about med school that we wish we could build a product around,” Soetikno said.
From the AI standpoint, Soetikno said he hopes to continue improving the simulator.
Aguiar said the company’s overall short-term goal is to work with more medical schools across the world.
“Even when you graduate from medical school, that’s just the beginning,” Aguiar said. “The knowledge out there, and the ways of practicing medicine, are constantly evolving. … So I think that’s kind of where the motivation to design a tool like this came out of.”
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