Being a full-time, third-year medical student is tough enough but Michael “Fuj” Fujinaka is also busy helping his fellow students learn.  He answered his own questions about identifying heart murmurs by inventing a practical, high-tech learning tool.

“All doctors use stethoscopes and all medical students purchase them upon entering med school,” explained Fujinaka.  “So I thought there might be a high demand for a program that teaches students how to recognize heart murmurs.”

Fujinaka created an application (“app”) for the iPhone called iMurmur.  The name refers to a set of heart problems that give off a certain sound.  That sound – or murmur— can be heard by a stethoscope.  Now, with Fujinaka’s app, students and health practitioners can practice diagnosing heart murmurs using a set of earphones and an iPhone.  Through a series of quizzes focusing on the most common heart problems, iMurmur teaches its users to recognize and identify what is wrong with the heart.

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