Voice For Medical Education with Drs. Neel Desai and Taylor Brana

VFH Episode 58

In this episode, Teri welcomes Drs. Neel Desai and Taylor Brana who wrote a chapter together in the Voice Technology in Healthcare book about medical education and how voice technology is completely changing the way that we look at education for medical trainees.

Dr. Desai has dedicated many years towards helping medical students to understand that there is so much more to medicine that just practicing natural medicine. Dr. Brana is the host of the Happy Doc Podcast which amplifies the voices of physicians that are doing really interesting, creative, and fulfilling things that are outside of their regular medical practice. He has had a deep interest in aiding in the processes of medicine, healthcare, and education. Starting The Happy Doc Podcast has enabled them to learn what makes physicians fulfilled in their careers and lives.

Key points from Dr. Desai and Brana!

Voice technology and how it will improve fulfillment, happiness, education, and having the ability to learn in a different way.

Getting Interested in Voice

Taylor:

It came so naturally for Taylor.
He got into podcasting because it was a way for someone to learn a lot of things while they’re still active doing other things.
They learned a lot about voice technology and what it could do from a lot of people including Gary Vaynerchuk.
He sees voice as podcast plus where one can imagine a world of the future where they will be able to interact with voice experiences in a way that the user will be in control.

Neel:

He got his first smart speaker in 2016 and one day he noticed his son was doing a quiz through an Alexa skill, which he found fascinating.
His own frustrations with EMRs made him think of voice as a solution even for the training of medical students.

Voice and the Future of Education – Taylor

Teaching has always happened through oral (voice) teachings and so using voice technology is a natural progression.
He feels it’s important to understand voice so we can use it to the best of our capacity.
In the chapter they wrote in the Voice Technology in Healthcare book, they talked about where the technology is now and where it’s heading.
The Mayo Clinic, for example, has a skill that is like a general repository of information. People can ask the skill medical questions, and it will give them solid information about, for example, what to do if they get injured or have a muscle spasm.
The benefits of applying voice technology in education are tremendous and there is still so much more to do.

Voice For Medical Education with Drs. Neel Desai and Taylor Brana

Their Education Voice Applications

Neel:

They created MedFlashGo, a medical question bank for students in medical school who are studying for different exams.
The skill is for studying for board exams. In the US there are 3 steps to becoming a licensed physician. Each step has important exams that one has to pass to move on to the next level.
The skill consists of hands free medical flash cards on the go. The cards consist of test questions for the user. They can be either multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank questions about medical subjects for the user’s exams.
They currently have around 1,000 questions with a goal to cover step 1, step 2, step 3, and shelf concepts.
Their focus is on teaching the next generation of medical students by creating new healthier learning systems by training them on voice early on. That will ensure that it will not be a big barrier to get them to adopt using voice speakers in healthcare facilities.
He believes this application will pioneer the way for new ways of learning.

Taylor:

They are also working on DentalFlashGo and MCatFlashGo.
The skills are all focused on helping students with their board exams.

The Happy Doc Podcast

Taylor:

Burnout, depression and exhaustion is happening a lot in medicine and one of the things they have been talking about is how learning, teaching, creating and practicing medicine in the century we live in is going to be easier and more efficient through voice.