About our project
The Problem we solve
There is a wealth of health information on the internet – but most of it is biased, incomplete, or just plain confusing. Patients do not have access to the latest unbiased medical information and ongoing research about their disease or condition. This information is traditionally published in medical research journals – an expensive and exclusive resource to which most do not have access.
At the same time, information that patients find online or hear about in the news is often misleading or only a “half truth.”
The problem is only getting worse as medical research is ongoing in most areas of health care and the amount of medical knowledge continues to pile up! It can be difficult even for physicians and health professionals to keep up, not to mention the patients with no medical training who simply want to know what is going on with their body and what they can do to stay healthy.
Our Solution
We created MD Lingo with one goal in mind – to provide our patients with reliable, up to date information on the latest medical research.
We imagine being able to go to one site and looking up ANY condition or disease and finding all the latest literature on new medicines, new therapies, new treatments and new discoveries. All based on real facts and real science – but made clear and easy to understand!
This is accomplished by taking the latest medical studies and “translating” them into everyday English. We envision a full directory of the same journals doctors read but presented without the medical gibberish, boiled down to its main points and how they affect you!
Not only does MD Lingo give you full access to these previously unattainable resources, we also attempt to break down the studies, letting you know which ones were done well (and are backed by evidence) vs those that you should be more skeptical about. Furthermore, while the FDA approval process for new medications can often be long and confusing, we hope to demystify it by not only explaining how it works but also informing patients how far a particular therapy is from being approved.
MD Lingo is a crew of over 50 writers and 10 editors who are top medical students from around the country. Our students are are driven and intellectually curious. Each day they read studies and learn about new developments in medicine. They are trained at interpreting the results and communicating the information with clarity to our audience of readers.Each writer has, at minimum, a bachelor’s degree in a scientific/technical field of study. A few even have graduate degrees as well or are pursuing additional doctorate or master’s degrees in addition to their medical school pursuits. These writers all believe in the mission of MD Lingo and the goal of patient education.
How MD Lingo Works
MDLingo.com has a very simple layout. We do this on purpose because often patients get frustrated and discouraged when trying the find medical information online. Even when we obtain startup funds for web development and user interface enhancement, we think it is important to maintain this user-friendliness. The images below are screenshots walking you through a user experience on MD Lingo.
Scenario: You are a patient who just left your doctor’s office for a checkup. You were told that your cholesterol was high and that you should begin eating a heart healthy diet. You come home, sit down at your computer, and type in www.mdlingo.com.
- Home Screen: This is what you see when you arrive at MDLingo.com. We have the latest most interesting stories scrolling across the screen and a top ten list of the most viewed stories on the right. You click “Latest Studies” to get to the directory.
- Categorized Studies: On this screen, patients choose the organ system pertaining to their question. We like this setup because it is easy for patients to understand and the medical jargon is checked at the door (as with all of MD Lingo material). Since you’re looking for information on a heart healthy diet, you select “Your Heart.”
- Heart-Related Studies: Here it is, the wealth of the latest cardiovascular medical research available to you in your living room at the click of a mouse. The articles are written for you – in a language that doesn’t give you a headache. You scroll down and find an article titled, “Whole Grains for Prevention of Heart Disease.”
- Article Page: you are looking at a page describing a recent study from the British Medical Journal about how eating more fiber can help you in many ways, including keeping your heart healthy. The beauty is that this report is unbiased, unskewed, and based solely on the results of this research group’s investigation (meaning statistically verified and peer-reviewed). Even more, you’ll read lines like: “ultimately the conclusion was that whole grains and vegetables are best, with fruit-based fiber sources coming in a close second” followed immediately by “the study did not analyze the effects of fiber supplements, so no conclusion can be reached on that matter.”
Clear, concise, useful information in words that you don’t have to look up in a dictionary. There is also an informative figure, a link to the original study, the date of publication, and the name of the medical student author.
- Meet our Team: Just as an example, say you are interested in reading more from the person who wrote the article about whole grains. Maybe you particularly enjoyed his/her writing or are curious about his/her background. Easy – click on the “Meet our Team” link at the top of the page. You arrive at the image below. In our example Matthew Kofoed was the author of our piece.
- Writer Page: We arrive at Matt’s writer page to find that he is a medical student who studied biomedical engineering at Clemson before heading to the Medical University of South Carolina. He has written 7 articles for MD Lingo and is an editor as well. If it were me, seeing this would reassure me that I could trust the article I just read.
How We Help Patients:
The benefit to patients is empowerment – because knowledge is power. When you understand your condition, why your doctor chose a particular therapy (or chose not to prescribe a particular therapy for that matter), and what evidence supported this decision, you feel like a part of the team. It truly is a healthcare partnership when you can discuss the latest research with your physician and understand all of the evidence behind your treatment strategy.
Also, if the patient does not agree with the route chosen by their physician, they have the research to back up their request for a change or a second opinion. Increased adherence to treatment strategies, reduction in the number of failed attempts, and decreasing unnecessary referrals/hospitalizations will have a large financial benefit both for the patient and the healthcare system as a whole.
How We Help Doctors (or Other Care Givers):
The benefits for patients listed above all have a rippling effect to benefit doctors. By making patients more medically literate, visits will be faster (less explaining and defending the chosen treatment modality), patients will not come in with erroneous information from fatalistic health information websites (“Google says my headache must be brain cancer”), and patients will have a better understanding of the process of medical research. By understanding the process, doctors can say things like, “Medicine X was found to be non-inferior to medicine Y” and patients will not walk out thinking medicine X is better than medicine Y.
Giving doctors more time to interview and examine the patient (because they are spending less time explaining and defending their decisions) will reduce the number of missed diagnoses and – theoretically – the number of malpractice lawsuits. Mostly, though, doctors will be able to see more patients without having to sacrifice the attention given to any one individual patient.
How We Help Hospitals, Institutions, and/ or Medical Facilities:
An institution that supports MD Lingo will receive as a reward an image that is sought after by all medical institutions. That image is one of dedication to patient education, reduction in healthcare expenses, and increased healthiness of the patient population. When a hospital backs MD Lingo, they are backing the concept of patient empowerment and healthcare partnership as a whole. A hospital that backs MD Lingo will receive advertising on our website, which will associate the hospital with our cause and better the patient’s opinion of that hospital. Further, the hospital will benefit financially for all of the reasons mentioned above in the “benefits to doctors” section.
How We Help Our Partners
Partners are looking to find beneficial relationships with emerging companies in the healthcare space. MD Lingo’s market is from a large perspective the "sick and well "patients who are curious and active in their health. As an example, imagine an article on MD Lingo describing a recent Phase III clinical trial that supported medicine X. As a partner, you will get access to our visitors and disease specific content. We have plans for newsletters in which patients opt-in to updates for particular diseases/therapies/etc. Access and sponsorship in our mailers are benefits we will provide.
Partners are not limited to pharmaceutical companies. Say a study comes out supporting spin classes as more effective than running at improving cardiovascular health. We could partner with chain fitness centers to offer discounted memberships to MD Lingo readers. This is an example, of course, that serves to demonstrate the limitless possibilities for partners with MD Lingo. However, it all comes back to the reliability of the source. Partners will benefit because patients will be drawn to MD Lingo for real reasons: it is unbiased, backed by research, and easy to understand.
How We Will Spend Your Contributions:
Being fully funded would allow us to expand and support our growing website. We want to add awesome new functions to help improve the user experience. Among these are:
- Individualized patient updates
- Access to a greater array of journals
- Improved search capabilities
- Videos and improved diagrams / pictures to make this information more easily accessible
- A forum to allow visitors to discuss articles they’ve read
- Update our “backend” interface to make sure articles go up as soon as they become available in the medical journals
Your contributions will also go towards equipment, hosting and bandwidth, and mobile app development to help us further expand the MD Lingo project.
Who We Are:
Co-Founders and CEOs:
Deep Parikh
Deep is a fourth year medical student at SUNY Downstate, a graduate of the Brooklyn College BA-MD program. In his spare time he enjoys a good work out, watching Seinfeld, stand-up comedy, and getting into heated political debates. Deep was recently hit by the travel bug and has spent the last six weeks abroad travelling and studying the health care delivery system of Southeast Asia.
LinkedIn
Vladimir Ornstein
Vlad is a 4th year medical student at Jefferson Medical College who is passionate about patient empowerment and education. Outside of medicine he enjoys traveling, tennis and reading science fiction novels. He is also a die –hard Knicks fan!
LinkedIn
Chief Editor and COO:
Joshua Horton
After growing up in a very small town in southwestern Indiana, Josh studied biochemistry and mathematics at IUPUI in Indianapolis, IN. Upon completion of his undergraduate studies, he accepted a position in the MD/PhD combined degree program at New York University School of Medicine. However, struck by an excitement for clinical medicine, Josh decided to forego the PhD portion of the program and focus on patient-centered medicine. He has a passion for playing baseball; loves watching his Hoosiers play basketball; and enjoys white water rafting, camping, and other outdoors activities.
LinkedIn
Social Media Intern
Julie Casale
LinkedIn
How to Find Us:
MDLingo.com
Twitter
Facebook
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Have a question?
If the info above does not help, you can ask the project creator directly.
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