Carlos F. Guevara / Reforma Agency
Friday, September 09, 2022 | 21:58
Mexico City.- Until the early 20th century, surgeries were performed in amphitheaters where the medical student community, and even the general public, could attend. This pedagogical transparency disappeared to give way to more private and aseptic techniques in modern medicine.
This reflection is one of the many starting points for the development of Medu, a Mexican startup that aims to put medical students in the front row of a surgery virtually, that is, that they can learn the procedures through streaming.
Medu is planted as a Netflix of the medical area, but with a strong artistic component, since the service offers visual and narrative quality in the videos of surgeries, in addition, it integrates technological innovations, since the service is supported by a mobile application and web app.
The startup is led by Sebastián Prida, CEO; Santiago Pérez, director of audiovisual production; Mauricio Peón, director of technology; and Sebastián Salazar, director of business development. Together, they told us how the platform works and where they are going.
Medu was conceived as a teaching tool for physicians about to take the National Examination of Applicants for Medical Residencies. Concept tests began in 2018 with filming of surgeries to reinforce knowledge. The video format was a resounding success.
After the pandemic, they carried out medical capsules and a reaction course against Covid-19, with the support of the Carlos Slim Foundation; at that time they agreed that they had to scale to a quality and updated product.
“We realized the transformative purpose that Medu has, which is to positively impact world health, through knowledge. We know that keeping health professionals updated and educated makes them better serve their patients, and therefore, impact in the health of each one of the people in the population”, emphasized Sebastián Prida.
Santiago Pérez mentioned that Medu also emerges as a criticism of traditional educational models, which he described as stagnant and which have been maintained in a similar way for 8 centuries of existence, away from the technological revolution and opportunities to learn from the cloud, even from Youtube.
“Most medical students, throughout their undergraduate degree, which is 4 or 5 years, go into operating rooms very little or not at all. The way they learn is from books and diagrams that they suddenly find.
“We wanted to generate an alternative and complementary model to professional education that could make use of these things that were not used; a very important one is Information Technology, that is why we have a very strong part of IT without neglecting art and cinematography,” said Pérez.
The company insists on breaking with current myths that mathematicians cannot be painters and that painters cannot be biologists because they are very different ways of thinking, this idea is translated into its logo that consists of an oloid, a geometric object that refers to the impossible figures painted by Maurits Cornelis Escher.
Medu offers more than 50 video surgeries; 30 medical talks; more than 8 thousand updated articles in Spanish; quizzes, interactive games for students to practice clinical cases from their area.
To date, they have more than 92 thousand health professionals affiliated and the rate of growth is 200 new subscriptions per day. Being a global platform, available for Android and iOS, the demand is concentrated in Mexico, while the rest is distributed in countries such as Argentina, Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, Peru and Spain.
“Students see us from all sides; we try to make this content for all of Latin America. There is not all this information in Spanish, that is why we are reaching these Spanish-speaking countries,” added Mauricio Peón.
Just like streaming platforms, Medu has plans for subscribers. In the basic scheme, which is free, there are courses, diplomas, medical talks, articles, clinical cases, podcasts and certificates.
In the premium model (Medu Qx), all of the above is offered plus the complete surgical library, that is, the videos, personalized and immersive surgical learning, as well as exclusive invitations to events. The cost per month is 249 pesos or annually, which amounts to 1,494 pesos.
To give certainty to the educational process of the students, Sebastián Salazar mentioned that they have collaborated with the Dr. Salim Yusuf Research Center, in Toronto; the University of Texas; and the National Hospital in Panama.
In Mexico they have as allies the Mexican Institute of Social Security, Angeles Hospital, Mexican Society of Pharmaceutical Research Industry, United Front for Lung Cancer, to name a few.
The spokespersons aspire for Medu to be the largest library of Spanish-speaking surgical procedures for students and in the medium term they intend to offer postgraduate degrees with official endorsement so that they can issue professional licenses, they anticipated that it will be a postgraduate degree in diabetes management and care.