SIUConversations Katowice Session 1: How Startups Revolutionise Diagnoses and Treatments

Author: Ruchi Maniar Edited by: Burcu Anil Kirmizitas

SIU Katowice, Poland, saw its first session on Tuesday 21st of March, on how startups can change and influence patient-doctor interactions, featuring Dem DX.

What is Dem DX?

Dem DX is an innovative clinical support tool, created by Lorin Gresser, a doctor at King’s Hospital, London. Essentially, the tool works as a diagnostic educational app, providing a list of differentials for the most likely diagnosis. The contributors of this app include professors and healthcare professionals from all over the world, including the USA and Israel. The tool is also supported by the NHS, providing reliability of the information presented. The app is aimed at junior doctors and medical students looking for diagnostic confidence, spanning across eleven specialities with more to come.

The event started off with a short background by our speaker, Tessa Davies, on why the cofounder created the app, and how this was envisioned in helping future doctors. This was further supplemented by medical cases and interactive sessions with the audience, leading to a list of possible differentials a patient may present with.

How can a startup such as Dem DX promote entrepreneurship?

The second half of the event involved our speaker providing a talk on alternative careers to medicine, and how ‘thinking outside of the box’ can benefit both medical students and healthcare professionals alike. Startups were a key point in Tessa's talk. She stressed that innovation has changed over the years in accordance with technology, which has led to a new era of health startups that aim to disrupt outdated processes, or work alongside traditional systems to support the process. Tessa mentioned that startups can essentially provide doctors with a background to venture into the world of business and gaining organisational skills that one day might come in handy when managing a team of doctors as a consultant, or in the case of opening a health practice. Other take-home points from Tessa's talk were related to awareness of bio-entrepreneurships, and how becoming an entrepreneur requires leadership abilities and determination for success.

It's safe to say that Tessa sowed some seeds in the minds of our audience on March 21st in Katowice to start thinking outside the box in the world of healthcare.