Med Tank: Entrepreneurial medical students pitch innovations

By the time they graduate, Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine (SOM) students are skilled clinicians, compassionate advocates, patient-centered caregivers, and innovative researchers. 

But how well can they pitch?  

Entrepreneurial skills were put to the test at this year’s Med Tank, a competition in the style of the TV series Shark Tank. Students from SOM teamed up with students from Rowan’s William G. Rohrer College of Business to develop innovative solutions for pressing issues and presented them at a January 29 event. Pitches were judged on a number of factors—novelty of the idea, strength of the presentation, feasibility of implementation, and other criteria—by an interdisciplinary panel of judges: Joshua Coren, D.O., senior associate dean for clinical affairs; Richard Jermyn, D.O., dean; Anne Jones, D.O., MPH, assistant dean for student affairs; and Michael Dominik, Ph.D., associate teaching professor of entrepreneurship in the School of Innovation & Entrepreneurship.   

Winners received cash prizes of $500, $350, and $250 for first, second, and third place, respectively, sponsored by Rowan’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Perhaps more valuably, they also built interdisciplinary connections to potentially take their idea further.  

That’s a hope for Rowan MBA student Megan Steckler, whose team came in first place for their proposal of StickRX. Using a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-powered smart sticker that attaches to prescription bottles to track medication adherence, StickRX issue gentle reminders to encourage users to stick to their regimen. Steckler and her teammates, first-year SOM student Shruti Dalwadi and Raya Shamilov, a business student from Drexel University, built prototypes and developed a detailed business plan establishing the need, evaluating competitor devices, and outlining the product’s development timeline. Steckler and Shamilov provided the business acumen; Dalwadi offered the medical perspective.  

“By the end, we were on Zoom five nights a week for two hours at a time, refining our idea and rehearsing our pitch,” said Steckler.  

In the second-place project, first-year SOM student Nassos Tziviskos pitched “PneumbrALARM,” an app designed to help notify emergency services that someone may be having a stroke and document symptoms to better inform the care team.  

Technology that worked together with health care providers was a theme across the projects and something that Tziviskos took particular care to include in his design and business plan—and the judges took note, as well.  

“One thing I wanted to keep in mind, and that the judges stressed, was the liability of not detecting a stroke and of getting a false negative,” said Tziviskos. “So, my app is not really meant for diagnosing but to instead be a tool for the care team to get what they need faster.” 

“PathoScope,” by second-year SOM student Lothar Vidal, placed in third. “This concept involves creating a comprehensive, AI-powered platform to analyze biopsy samples remotely,” reads the project description. The proposed platform would aim to support pathologists and specialists in making accurate, timely diagnoses of cancer and other conditions. 

Now in its sixth year, Med Tank began in 2019 under the name Project Nest, founded as a student by Nathan Carroll, DO, now chief resident psychiatrist at Jersey Shore Medical Center. Though the projects have changed over the years—Carroll, who attended this year’s presentations, says that recent projects have been more responsive to emerging technologies like AI—at its core, the event has stayed true to its original purpose: combining the creativity and passion of medical students and business students to solve real-world problems.  

“It’s an important perspective—that there’s more than one way to help people out, in addition to traditional avenues of medicine,” said Sami Dakhel, co-president of InvestMed, the student organization that puts together the event. “We want them to know that if they have a potential idea, there are resources available for them to flesh out these ideas.” 

Given the pace of life in and after medical school, it’s understandably difficult for students to continue working on their projects after Med Tank. But, six years later, the competitors from that first year of Project Nest are finishing up their residencies, and Carroll has hopes that some of those ideas will resurface.  

“I expect that some of them may come back,” he said. “That entrepreneurial bug doesn’t go away.”