Co-founder - Dendritic Health AI

Company
• Semi-finalist at largest business plan competition in the world (Rice Business Plan Competition 2024)
• Closed $1.1 million in funding
• Featured in Crain's Detroit Business magazine

Design
• Acheived landing page conversion rates from 5% to 25%
• Reduced drop-off for case simulator feature by 70%

In March of 2023 I co-founded Dendritic Health AI to make the process of preparing for medical school exams easier. For the past few years, I have been responsible for leading the design direction of our main product Neural Consult.

Neural Consult leverages artificial intelligence to deliver a suite of tools that medical school students can use to better prepare for their exams.

The level of burnout among medical students is higher than it has ever been. Each year students are expected to master an increasing amount of information. However, the tools and processes to learn this information has remained unchanged. On top of this, the methods that students use to study are costly and do not adapt based on the students needs.

According to a study conducted by Research Gate on more than 25,000 med school students, the burnout prevelance rate was 37.23%. This signaled a clear problem with the existing process and an area that was ripe for change.

As a co-founder and Head of Design, my role requires wearing many hats. My main responsibilities center around the product user experience. This involves strategic high level thinking and the hands on work required to execute on these initiatives. Over time, our design team has grown and I have become responsible for managing several members of the design team to ensure strategic initiatives are met.
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On top of this, I am also involved in other business initiatives that play an essential role in moving the company forward. For example, crafting business plans, pitch decks, and sharing our mission at conferences.

Below are some pictures from Northwestern Universities Startup & Growth Fair (Chicago, IL) and the Rice Business Plan Competition (Houston, TX).

Building a product that students would find value in required understanding students existing methods of studying. I had to learn how med school students prepare for their exams in order to design solutions that would help improve their existing processes.

After interviewing several med school students I was able to learn more about their study habits. After synthesizing the findings, the recurring methods became clear. Some of these techniques were new to me, having not gone through med school, but I was able to relate to the majority as they are similar to general educational institutions.

Student study methods:
• Lecture material including notes and lecture audio
• Flashcards to actively test students knowledge
• Question Banks - UWorld, Kaplan, AMBOSS (banks of big exam style questions)
• Studying with groups to reinforce learning and clarify with peers
• In-person patient simulations - Students interview actors to practice clinical skills

These traditional methods of studying work many, but the level of burnout suggests that the process can be improved. Analyzing each method it was clear there were gaps and areas that could be improved.

Gaps:
• Lecture notes and flashcards - Manual time and effort to prepare materials
• Question banks - Students pay high subscription costs (up to $700)
• Simulations - Cost of paid actors, limited opportunities, long delay in receiving feedback
• Integration - These methods exist independently of one another
• Personalization - Many of these tools are standardized across all students and not tailored to students needs

In building Neural Consult we wanted to create a single space where students could learn and practice everything they needed to master their curriculum in one space. We knew that artificial intelligence offered a whole new way for students to interact with their curriculum. We immediately brainstormed all of the different ways that AI could be leveraged to take some of the existing study methods to automate and make more engaging.

Over the course of two years we were able to build Neural Consult. Today more than 30,000 students use this tool to help them prepare for the medical school curriculum. We have delivered a suite of AI features that automate the existing methods to help students prepare in a more customized, efficient, and fun way. Here are some of the features we have delivered to date.

Students can upload lecture slides and automatically generate notes based on the content. They can also use that material as a base to create flashcards and question sets from the material.

Students can choose from a bank of cases to practice their clinical skills on-demand and instantly receive feedback to help them improve. No more traveling to sites to practice on paid actors.

Input custom fields to generate flashcards on demand that are personalized to what material you are preparing for. Gain insight into your strengths and weaknesses after completing

• Consistency - Continuing to show up and deliver results on a consistent basis will lead to big acheivements over time
• Feedback loops - Be strategic and pay attention to how new features impact important metrics. Test these decisions and iterate quickly