Osmosis.org Co-founder & CEO Relies on His Own Learning Platform for Return to Med School

Some of you may have a general idea about how Osmosis got started, but today you are going to get the full, fascinating story from one of its co-founders, Shiv Gaglani, who we welcome back to the Raise the Line podcast as our special guest. Shortly into his first year of medical school at Johns Hopkins in 2011, Shiv, and his co-founder Ryan Haynes, realized medical education was overdue for an upgrade. “The research was clear on how people learn and how to get them to engage in their education, but professors weren't being taught how to teach. We wanted to bring evidence-based education tools like spaced repetition, test-enhanced learning, memory palaces and flipped classrooms to medical education.” They also wanted to make it fun, efficient and personalized, keying off the customized recommendations media giants such as Netflix and Facebook were using. After completing their second year, both took a leave from med school to build Osmosis based on those insights. After growing it from a crowdsourced question bank for classmates into a global education platform serving millions of future healthcare professionals, Shiv shepherded the acquisition of the company by Elsevier in 2021, freeing him to return to Johns Hopkins to complete his degree which he recently moved to Baltimore to do. So, what’s it like to go from running the company to being a student using the product he helped build? Tune in to this delightful episode to find out, to learn what specialties he’s considering and for advice on using “negative” emotions to achieve productive outcomes. If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast