Working with the Nexus community – A student’s perspective
Eight University of Leeds medical students have joined Nexus members Itecho Health to assist with the acceleration of their Ascelus project, a platform which includes apps for patients and medical teams and is designed to manage long-term conditions and reduce the need for face to face appointments.
The students, either working from Leeds where some have been on the front line as healthcare assistants; from their parents’ homes in the UK, or globally including Singapore and Kuwait.
Mohamed Ismail, one of the Leeds-based medical students, tells us his story.
A FUTURE IN MEDTECH?
My journey to medical technology (medtech) started around two years ago when I began to branch out of the standard undergraduate medical curriculum and look into the factors that will shape the future of healthcare both in the UK and internationally.
Leeds is already home to a thriving innovation scene, with medtech being a particular strength. Amongst the many amazing facilities we are fortunate to have in Leeds is Nexus, which provides valuable connections and collaborations that promote the growth of ideas which can truly have an innovations which impact the future.
A PRODUCTIVE MEETING
Dr Adrian Brown (Co-Founder of Itecho Health) and I met at an event Itecho Health hosted at Nexus in October last year, looking into advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) across various sectors. From speaking with Adrian I learned more about the work of Itecho Health, including their platform – Ascelus – and in the months that followed, arranged an 8 week elective module as part of my degree joining the business to gain valuable skills and insight into medtech start-ups.
Fast-forward to March 2020 and COVID-19 shook us all, including my dreams of an amazing summer spent on several medical projects. Thankfully, the Itecho Health team, with the help of Nexus and the University’s Medical School, were able to adapt my original summer elective so I could still join the business to work on the project. Alongside myself, 7 other students from the medical school – whose elective modules had been cancelled due to the pandemic – have also been able to join the project.
MOVING FORWARDS
I believe that real development in medicine and surgery lies in engineering and computer science. Through projects like Ascelus, I hope that more opportunities will emerge to enable medical students and young trainees to acquire key skills earlier in their career, to help them innovate and shape the future of healthcare.
I see a burgeoning demand for remote monitoring of patients, efficient triaging of patients and streamlined communication methods between humans and software – all of which the Ascelus project addresses. Working alongside Itecho Health will help me gain valuable insight into the real-world challenges and how industry can help solve these.
Thanks again to Nexus for providing a rich soil that allows for collaboration and a means to explore fantastic opportunities.
As always, we love to hear from all of our Community, get in touch if you’d like to share your story with us.
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