Education
University of Queensland School of Medicine, Ochsner Clinical School
February 2017 to December 2022 · MD conferred March 2023Brisbane, Australia and New Orleans, Louisiana.
- Two preclinical years in Brisbane; clinical years at Ochsner Medical Center, New Orleans.
- Psychiatry rotations on the acute inpatient and consult-liaison services at Ochsner Medical Center.
Cornell University
September 2011 to May 2015B.S. Biology with an additional concentration in neurobiology. Ithaca, New York.
- Neurobiology concentration: neural systems and behavior, the science base for psychiatry, carried into laboratory work below and into the pharmacogenetic prescribing experience.
- NCAA Division I varsity wrestling team.
- Technician I, computational neurophysiology laboratory (Mudd Hall).
University of Virginia, Semester at Sea
2010Coursework across eleven countries.
NCAA Division I wrestler, Cornell University
2011 to 2015Varsity wrestling in a nationally ranked Division I program, alongside a full biology degree and laboratory work.
- Daily practice, weight management, and competition travel while carrying a full science course load.
- Coached the Excel Youth Olympic Wrestling Program at Broomfield High School before Cornell (2009 to 2010); guest coach at De La Salle High School, New Orleans, 2021 to 2022; folkstyle wrestling today.
Licensure and examinations
- ECFMG
- Certified.
- USMLE Step 1
- Passed, first attempt.
- USMLE Step 2 CK
- 229. April 6, 2026.
- USMLE Step 3
- Passed, first attempt, before residency. June 12 and 23, 2026: nine weeks after Step 2 CK. All three Steps complete
- Conditions
- All examinations taken under standard conditions.
- Certifications
- ACLS and BLS, current.
- Memberships
- American Psychiatric Association.
Clinical and public health experience 2026
Clinical elective in geriatrics, community medicine, and public health
August to September 2026McAllen, Texas. Supervisor: Iván G. Meléndez, MD, MBA, Local Health Authority, Hidalgo County. Seven services, one Spanish-speaking community.
Acute inpatient psychiatry unit
Each morning: admission histories and physicals and admission orders, written under supervision and co-signed by the attending. Progress notes and plans presented on complex patients.
Skilled nursing and long-term care
Comprehensive geriatric assessments, admission histories and physicals, and admission and progress notes on long-stay residents.
Advanced life support ambulance
Weekly ride-alongs with Mission Fire and EMS on advanced life support calls across the six weeks.
Hidalgo County Adult Detention Facility, Edinburg
Intake histories and physical examinations, psychiatric evaluations of detainees, and facility health checks alongside the Local Health Authority.
Hidalgo County Forensic Center, Edinburg
Observed a full forensic autopsy, external and internal examination, with the county forensic pathologist. September 17, 2026.
Anchor of Love Hospice, McAllen
Home hospice visits with Dr. Meléndez and hospice rounds in the facilities: symptom assessment, goals-of-care and family meetings in Spanish where needed, comfort care notes and orders co-signed by the attending.
Hidalgo County Health and Human Services
Adult and child addiction initiatives with the county health department; speaker at community obesity seminars in McAllen. Lead author and guarantor of the county's colorectal cancer screening cost report, which shows the county saving money: seven early catches pay for mailing a stool-test kit to every unscreened adult (Research).
Outpatient psychiatry
September 2026Practice of José E. Igoa, MD, Program Director, DHR Health Psychiatry Residency. McAllen, Texas. With Dr. Juliann Garza Castillo.
- Spanish-speaking patient population in the Rio Grande Valley.
Pharmacogenetic prescribing, private practice psychiatry
2026 to present · weeklyBoulder, Colorado. Mentor: David Rosenthal, MD.
- Reviewed Genomind pharmacogenetic panels with the supervising psychiatrist.
- Interpreted CYP450 and P-glycoprotein results for dosing, and serotonin transporter, BDNF, glutamate, and MTHFR results for drug selection in patients who had failed successive SSRIs.
Research
Research associate, Hidalgo County Health and Human Services public health group
September 2026 to presentMcAllen, Texas. Lead author and guarantor of the working group report below. Supervisor: Amy Gonzalez, MPH.
- Lead author, corresponding author, and guarantor
Katz A, Patel C, Mousa M, Mohanraj K, Taori SM. The cost case for colorectal cancer screening, with an applied model for Hidalgo County, Texas. Colorectal Cancer Screening Cost Analysis Working Group, Hidalgo County Health and Human Services. Report prepared for the county accounting committee, September 18, 2026. As guarantor, responsible for the whole work: the study design, the model, the analysis, and the final text. Economic analysis reported to the CHEERS 2022 standard: transparent break-even model, one-way sensitivity analysis, 21 references verified against PubMed, with an accompanying Excel workbook, memo, plain-language guide, and interactive tutorial. Report, under departmental reviewSynopsis: what the county savesHidalgo County has about 113,500 unscreened adults aged 45 to 74. Mailing every one of them a stool-test kit once, with reminder calls and laboratory processing, costs $1,189,525 ($10.48 a head). One metastatic colorectal cancer bills $353,255 in its first year; finding that patient early instead of late avoids $171,255 in year one. Seven stage shifts pay for the whole county mailing in billed charges, nineteen in Medicare paid amounts, before counting the years of life gained, continuing care avoided, or end-of-life costs that never arrive. Over a lifetime, annual stool testing costs less per person than no screening ($3,811 to $5,384 against $5,268 to $5,845) and adds 125 to 163 quality-adjusted life years per 1,000 people screened. Locally, incidence is rising 4.7 percent a year, 60.5 percent of the 311 yearly cases are late stage at diagnosis, and 96 people die of the disease each year.
- Lead on a county survey instrument on screen time, sleep, and mental health in children and adults. Design stage, September 2026.
- Contributor to a county health profile.
Educational eye-tracking and time-keeping software for attention-deficit learners
January to December 2022Self-directed, open source. New Orleans, Louisiana.
- Built a beta that uses a PC camera to track eye position in real time and records time on the designated study application, mouse activity, and disengagement, with feedback on focus patterns.
- Poster: Katz AB. ADHD Time-Keeper Software. Ochsner Research Day, New Orleans, May 6, 2022.
Medical education software
Founder and developer, Borborygmi Labs (borb.org)
June 2021 to presentBoulder, Colorado.
- Built a multiplayer medical education game played by students in about twenty countries (playable at borb.org).
- Designed an AI error-analysis engine that identifies the misconception behind each missed practice question and generates targeted review; simulates the Step 3 and PRITE examinations.
- Created a gamified study platform with reward systems built around attention management, developed from tools first built for board preparation with ADHD.
- Content agnostic by design: a parent and a child, or two colleagues, each load their own material and play the same game side by side, one preparing for a board exam and the other for preschool, spending time together while studying different subjects.
- Hires and directs artists and engineers; owns product design, specification, and development leadership; sells licenses to medical students and residents.
SOAP Builder, a drill for the Subjective section of the clinical note (borb.org/soap)
October 2026 to presentFree, browser based. Boulder, Colorado.
- Trains the part of the SOAP note students find hardest. From a case vignette the learner writes the one-liner, crosses out the sentences that do not belong in the S, files each rejected fact into its real home (HPI, past history, medications, objective findings, assessment, plan), then names and orders the four blocks of the S and sorts the surviving facts into them.
- 80 cases, 44 inpatient progress notes and 36 clinic visits, across family medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, psychiatry and addiction medicine. Every step is checked sentence by sentence with the reason, and each case ends with a model S.
Open-source medical text automation and a Unicode medical symbol proposal
2018 to 2022Self-directed. New Orleans, Louisiana.
- Free AutoHotkey input automation that expands typed drug and eponym shorthand into full names with generic and brand forms; every psychiatric medication entered (2019 to 2022).
- Proposal for standardized medical symbols submitted to the Unicode Consortium (2018 to 2022).
Teaching
USMLE Step 1 and Step 2 instructor, Borborygmi Labs
June 2018 to presentRemote group classes.
- Evidence-based medical pedagogy: active learning, formative assessment, and retrieval practice so students master complex material and perform on the exam.
USMLE tutor, self-employed
2024 to present- Tutors Step 2 CK and Step 3 candidates using a stepwise method: category, plain language, then full complexity.
- Adapts study systems for learners with attention and learning differences.
- Regular teaching contributor, USMLE Privateers, an international licensing-exam preparation community; named contributor on the group website.
Guest coach, De La Salle High School wrestling team
January 2021 to December 2022New Orleans, Louisiana.
- Two hours a week wrestling with and instructing high-school students.
Coach, Excel Youth Olympic Wrestling Program
January 2009 to August 2010Broomfield High School, Colorado.
- Taught technique, delegated tasks to wrestlers, and explained nutrition to parents.
Leadership and service
Vice President, American Medical Student Association chapter, UQ-Ochsner Clinical School
January to November 2022New Orleans, Louisiana.
- Coordinated the chapter's meetings, events, and financial decisions for the year.
- Organized charity events and a two-day professional photo shoot for graduating students' ERAS applications (April 2022) that raised money for the chapter.
Featured student, "White Coat Wednesday"
2023University of Queensland School of Medicine.
Member, American Society of Anesthesiologists student interest group
April 2021 to April 2022New Orleans, Louisiana.
International clinical experience
Charleville Hospital, Queensland, Australia
April to May 2017 · eight weeks- Remote former military hospital: histories, physical examinations, excisional biopsies of suspected skin cancers, suturing, cannulation and IV placement, vaccinations, deliveries, slit-lamp examinations, psychiatric consults.
- Outreach flights with the Royal Flying Doctor Service; the Heart of Australia cardiology bus; Aboriginal patient population.
National Hospital of Kandy, Sri Lanka
July 2018 · four weeks- Two weeks cardiology, one week pediatric surgery, one week Ayurvedic orthopedic medicine (Work the World placement).
- Tropical disease exposure.
Deloitte Israel, Tel Aviv
August 2016 to December 2017Strategic management consulting. Managed directly by Michael Sorin, CFO and COO.
Recommendation from Michael Sorin, LinkedIn, November 1, 2016"Adam is a proactive and tireless contributor who would make a great addition to any professional team. On the first day of his 2016 internship with our firm he hit the ground running by nearly doubling his 5-hour-per-day previously discussed agreement. Adam established an immediate report with our consulting team. He brings a good balance of candor, even-handedness, tact and abstract problem-solving to any project. Throughout his internship, Adam completed assignments on time and excelled at adding a coordinated and unprompted touch when appropriate. I would highly recommend Adam to his future employers for careers involving even the most demanding responsibilities in time."
Languages and interests
Languages
- English, native.
- Spanish, conversational; used with patients in the Rio Grande Valley, 2026.
- Portuguese, conversational.
Earlier work
January to August 2009Community Management Associates, Bozeman, Montana.
- Property management: inspections, tenant and contractor liaison, contracting repairs, bookkeeping.
Interests
- Game development. Classical guitar. Poetry.
- Chess (rated about 1600). Folkstyle wrestling (Cornell Division I team).
- Travel to more than forty countries.
Experiences MyERAS format
The certified 2027 MyERAS application carries one experience entry. The entries below use the same MyERAS fields (organization, position, dates, experience type, participation frequency, primary focus, key characteristic, and a context statement within the 750-character limit), so a reviewer can read the full record in the form they already use. The first entry expands the certified one. Three are marked most meaningful, as MyERAS allows.
Founder, Medical Education Software Developer
I design and build medical education software: a multiplayer learning game played by students in about twenty countries (playable at borb.org), an AI error-analysis tool that identifies the misconception behind each missed practice question and generates targeted review, a gamified study platform with reward systems built around attention management, and SOAP Builder, a free drill for the Subjective section of the clinical note (borb.org/soap). The game is content agnostic: a parent and a child, or two colleagues, each load their own material and play the same game side by side, one preparing for a board exam and the other for preschool, spending time together while studying different subjects. I architect the systems, direct development, and sell licenses. The tools began as my own board preparation with ADHD.
What made it meaningfulBuilding it meant hiring artists and engineers and learning that each craft needs a different kind of leadership. Watching a parent and a child study different subjects in one game, together, is what the years of work were for.
Clinical elective in geriatrics, community medicine, and public health
Clinical elective under the Local Health Authority of Hidalgo County. Inpatient psychiatry: admission histories and physicals and admission orders each morning, co-signed by the attending. Skilled nursing and long-term care: geriatric assessments, admission and progress notes. Hospice home visits and goals-of-care meetings with Anchor of Love Hospice. Weekly advanced life support ride-alongs with Mission Fire and EMS. County detention facility: intake histories and physicals, psychiatric evaluations of detainees, facility health checks. Observed a full forensic autopsy at the Hidalgo County Forensic Center. Public health: county addiction initiatives; speaker at community obesity seminars. Most patients were Spanish speaking.
What made it meaningfulSix weeks across an inpatient psychiatry unit, a nursing home, a hospice, an ambulance, a jail, an autopsy suite, and a county health department, with the same Spanish-speaking community on every service.
Research associate
Lead author, corresponding author, and guarantor of "The cost case for colorectal cancer screening, with an applied model for Hidalgo County, Texas," a report for the county accounting committee (September 18, 2026) with four co-authors from the county's Colorectal Cancer Screening Cost Analysis Working Group. Reported to the CHEERS 2022 standard: a transparent break-even model, a one-way sensitivity analysis, 21 references verified against PubMed, with an Excel workbook, memo, plain-language guide, and interactive tutorial. Under departmental review. Also leading the design of a county survey on screen time, sleep, and mental health in children and adults, and contributing to a county health profile.
What made it meaningfulA finance committee, not a journal, was the audience: the model had to be transparent enough for an accountant to re-run and honest enough to survive a sensitivity analysis.
Outpatient psychiatry elective
Outpatient psychiatry in the practice of the DHR Health psychiatry residency program director, seeing a Spanish-speaking patient population in the Rio Grande Valley.
Pharmacogenetic prescribing, mentored clinical experience
Reviewed Genomind pharmacogenetic panels with the supervising psychiatrist for patients who had failed successive SSRIs. Interpreted CYP450 and P-glycoprotein results for dosing decisions, and serotonin transporter, BDNF, glutamate, and MTHFR results for drug selection, and discussed the resulting prescribing plans.
USMLE tutor
Tutors Step 2 CK and Step 3 candidates one to one. Each topic is taught in three passes: the category it belongs to, a plain-language version, then the full complexity of the exam item. Builds individual study systems for learners with attention and learning differences. Regular teaching contributor to USMLE Privateers, an international licensing-exam preparation community.
Vice President
Coordinated the chapter's meetings, events, and financial decisions for the year. Organized charity events and a two-day professional photo shoot for graduating students to use on their ERAS applications, scheduled through shared spreadsheets and distributed by email; the shoot raised money for the chapter.
Medical student, rural hospital placement
Eight weeks in a remote hospital built by American forces in the Second World War, still equipped for a larger population than the town it serves. Took histories and performed physical examinations, excisional biopsies of suspected skin cancers, suturing, cannulation and IV placement, vaccinations, slit-lamp examinations, and assisted at deliveries; frequent psychiatric consults. Flew outreach clinics with the Royal Flying Doctor Service and worked with the Heart of Australia cardiology bus. Aboriginal patient population.
Medical student, clinical elective
Four-week elective: two weeks of cardiology, one week of pediatric surgery, and one week of Ayurvedic orthopedic medicine, in a hospital where practitioners exchange medical information in English while patients speak Sinhala and Tamil. Tropical disease exposure.
Strategic management consultant
Strategic management consulting, managed directly by the firm's CFO and COO, Michael Sorin, whose LinkedIn recommendation (November 1, 2016) reads in part: "a proactive and tireless contributor... He brings a good balance of candor, even-handedness, tact and abstract problem-solving to any project... completed assignments on time and excelled at adding a coordinated and unprompted touch when appropriate."
Who supervised this elective 2026
Hidalgo County has 921,549 people. One physician answers for their public health. Texas law calls that physician the Local Health Authority. Dr. Iván G. Meléndez holds that office for the county. Behavioral health sits in that office’s charge. His reach runs from the county jail to hospice homes to the psychiatric unit. The addiction initiatives and the psychiatric evaluations of detainees in this elective ran through his office. For six weeks I worked beside that office across the county. The notes in the elective above were written under his supervision and co-signed.