The right teaching,
at the right moment,
for one learner.
Idiogenicosmoles has been building medical-education tools since 2009, including apps for MDCalc and the New England Journal of Medicine. Today we're building the next generation: learning tools that adapt to the individual clinician — to the cases they ran, the questions they wrestled with, and the gaps they didn't know they had.
A small studio with a long track record.
We build specific, useful apps — each one solving one real clinical-learning problem at a time. A few we've shipped over the years:
Robot Parrot
A personalized post-shift audio lecture service for emergency medicine residents. You record a 90-second case summary; Robot Parrot finds the evidence behind your decisions and produces a tightly-targeted lecture for the drive home — while the questions are still fresh.
Joslin Chest X-Ray
A point-of-care chest X-ray atlas for residents. Dozens of specific radiographic findings, each presented with the visual cues residents need to recognize the finding on a real film at the bedside.
NEJM Visual Atlas
A visual atlas of unique medical findings, built in collaboration with the New England Journal of Medicine — turning their library of striking clinical imagery into a teaching tool residents could carry in their pocket.
MDCalc Mobile
We built MDCalc's first mobile app — translating one of the most widely-used clinical calculator websites into a fast, offline-capable tool for the clinicians who depend on it every shift.
Tick Doctor
A point-of-care clinical reference for evaluating tick bites — tick identification, removal technique, prophylaxis decisions, and risk stratification for tick-borne illness, condensed into the decisions a clinician actually has to make at the bedside.
Apps for individual physicians
Over the years we've partnered with physicians to turn their teaching material, calculators, and decision aids into the apps they wish existed — typically tightly scoped, single-purpose, and built around how their colleagues actually use them.
What's next
More apps for residents, more collaborations with physicians who have a clear teaching idea, and continued work on Robot Parrot across additional specialties.
Built by physicians, for residents, at the point of care.
Built for residents
Our work is designed for the moments residents actually learn — between cases, on shift, on the way home — not for a lecture hall or a conference week.
Specific over comprehensive
Each app does one thing and does it well. A chest X-ray atlas. A visual library. A clinical calculator. A post-shift lecture. We'd rather ship a tool that solves one problem cleanly than a platform that almost solves ten.
Physician-led
Every project is built by — or in close partnership with — working physicians. Editorial judgment, clinical accuracy, and respect for how clinicians actually think come from the people doing the job.
What does idiogenicosmoles mean?
A coined term: idio- (one's own, distinct) + -genic (generating, producing) + -osmoles (the smallest unit of an osmotic gradient — a single particle that moves what surrounds it). — A small, specific unit of learning, focused enough to move clinical thinking forward.
It captures what we try to make: small, specific tools — each one focused enough to actually shift how a resident sees, decides, or learns at the bedside.
Educators, residents, advisors — all welcome.
If you'd like to advise, contribute editorially, or be among the first to use our tools, we'd love to hear from you.