“Clinical placements are the most important part of medical training,” Jake Robinson said — and that simple point sits at the centre of a new Irish project with real promise. The newly qualified doctor, who graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons in 2023, has built an AI medical training app designed to help students learn better during busy hospital placements, where feedback can be hard to come by.
Robinson’s platform, called OnWard, grew directly from his own time on the wards. He saw how often students were asked to take a patient history, then wait for an overstretched senior doctor to review it. In theory, that feedback is vital. In practice, time is short. Hospitals are busy. And students can be left trying to piece things together on their own.
How one new tool could reshape clinical learning
The AI medical training app lets students present anonymised patient cases through an app and receive immediate feedback, including a score and prompts for improvement. It also creates a personalised digital logbook, helping students track cases, monitor progress across specialties and spot weak areas over time.
What stands out is that OnWard is built around real ward experience rather than simulations alone. For its planned launch later this year, the platform will include doctor-written material on more than 100 common adult medicine conditions.
- Immediate feedback after patient history-taking
- Anonymised case input for safer learning
- Progress tracking and analytics for students
- A university portal for educators to monitor performance
Robinson has largely self-funded the project, investing about €70,000 so far, with support from Fingal Local Enterprise Office, Enterprise Ireland’s innovation voucher programme, the Learnovate Centre in Trinity College and EdTech Ireland. He is now trialling the system with students and hopes to partner with a university for a wider rollout in the next academic year.
The bigger ambition is clear but grounded: make clinical training more structured, measurable and useful for the people living it every day. If this AI medical training app takes hold, it may start with Irish wards — and travel much further. Image Courtesy: The Irish Times
