AWS Public Sector Blog

Preparing medical students for essential exams with the cloud-powered DAMS eMedicoz app

The Delhi Academy of Medical Sciences Pvt Ltd (DAMS) has been the leading institute for National Eligibility and Entrance Test postgraduate (NEET PG) preparation for doctors in India for the last two decades. More than half a million doctors and medical students have studied under the distinguished medical faculty at DAMS.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, DAMS shifted its course delivery to its eMedicoz app, an education technology (EdTech) initiative powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that has reached more than 500,000 verified doctors and medical student subscribers since its inception. To keep students connected with real-time learning during the pandemic, DAMS used AWS to deliver live-streamed and two-way interactive classes for thousands of budding doctors through the eMedicoz app, in addition to other features.

Created by Dr. Sumer Sethi, a radiologist, entrepreneur, and the chief executive officer (CEO) of DAMS, the eMedicoz app helps bridge the gap for medical students preparing for various career opportunities at the post-doctoral level. The app offers specialized courses for doctors, dentists, and medical students to study for their specializations, as well as prepare for the United States Medical Licensing Examination® (USMLE®), the National Exit Test (NExT), and the NEET PG exams, all in one place. The eMedicoz app also offers no cost medical education videos and an interactive discussion platform for students and doctors to discuss medical cases and questions with their seniors and peers from around the world.

Figure 1. The eMedicoz app offerings: live courses and recorded courses, study material, interactive wall for discussion between students and teachers, and other free video material.

In addition to its courses, videos, and interactive forum, the app also provides study tools for medical students like question banks and flashcards. The app also includes features like practical courses for medical students and resident doctors where they can learn practical skills and even present live patient cases to senior doctors.

To provide live-streamed and video on demand (V0D) content to its users, eMedicoz uses AWS Elemental MediaLive, AWS Elemental MediaPackage, AWS Elemental MediaConvert, Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and Amazon CloudFront.

First, a live video is pushed to AWS Elemental MediaLive, a broadcast-grade live video processing service. MediaLive transcodes the live stream in multi-bitrate HTTP live streaming (HLS) output to AWS Elemental MediaPackage, a service which offers packaging and content harvest features as it prepares and protects video for delivery over the internet. For video on demand courses, DAMS uses MediaPackage to create live to VoD (L2V) content. This output is then stored in an Amazon S3 bucket in an HLS format. AWS Elemental MediaConvert, a file-based video transcoding service, converts the HLS VoD file to an mp4 format, and then Amazon CloudFront delivers the VoD content to students in the eMedicoz app.

Last year, DAMS conducted a medical revision live stream session that was attended by 15,000 students concurrently in full high-definition (HD), adaptive bit rate (ABR). Amazon CloudFront helped to deliver the content smoothly, securely, and with low latency.

“We now have more than 30 concurrent live stream channels where medical students are using the eMedicoz app for their NEET PG exam preparation, which is a high stake examination for doctors wishing to pursue specialization in India,” said Dr. Sethi. “We could not support this without being on AWS. As our user and subscriber base continues to expand, we are extremely confident in our ability to manage that growth.”

Learn more about how the AWS Cloud supports educational institutions and EdTechs in India at the AWS in India’s Public Sector hub.

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