Hooman Rashidi studies blood disorders and directs the residency program for the UC Davis Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. But he didn’t begin his career in medicine. His first love was bioinformatics and computer programming—a fascination which took him on a course that married the two disciplines and resulted in must-have learning tools for medical students and residents.
The newest item in his lineup of educational resources, HemeQuiz1, is an application focused on hematology assessment. It includes quizzes in more than 15 categories, quick references, and a game center that allows classmates to compete with one another while the app tracks the user’s progress. After only a few months on the market, HemeQuiz1 has become a top-selling hematology app.
Rashidi developed HemeQuiz1 in response to requests for a self-assessment tool to correlate with Hematology Outlines, a website and app he created eight years ago with the help of several colleagues. Hematology Outlines serves as a comprehensive source for all things hematology, including a full atlas and glossary of terms with tutorials and detailed images. Hematology Outlines is now an integral part of the curriculum at medical schools and clinical laboratory scientist training programs and is recommended by the American Society of Clinical Pathology for board preparation in hematology. More than 250,000 users have accessed the resource.
To build the new app, Rashidi collaborated with experts in pediatric and adult hematology/oncology and hematopathology. He tapped into his teaching skills and made it user-friendly by including a pause function for quizzes and two built-in randomizers that prevent users from memorizing answers. HemeQuiz1 is a standalone app, which allows students to study, and physicians to reference it, anywhere in the world without internet access.
