About STATMed Learning
Our mission at STATMed Learning is to teach smart medical students and physicians the specific skills they need to study, maximize time, and take boards-style tests. This applies to the classroom learning years, board prep students, and students and physicians in clinical settings.
While other programs focus on the WHAT, we focus on the HOW: HOW to study, HOW to maximize time, and HOW to show what you know on boards-style tests. This comes from our core belief that methodology matters.
While many experts in the field of medicine might think it is all about IQs and work ethic and standardized test scores, we believe that not all brains are created equally and that with the right methodology, lives can be changed and dreams can be achieved.
This might flip someone from failing to passing. Or it might take an average student who is working herself to the bone and help make her above average with a higher quality of life.
While STATMed Learning is not suited for everyone, there is a significant hidden subset of med students, physicians, and those in related fields (veterinarians, Pharm Ds, and PAs) who need better methods to advance comfortably through the classroom years, rotations, and board exams. And that is exactly what STATMed Learning was created to unlock.
STATMed Learning offers two platforms to help our students:
1) The STATMED CLASS for study skills and
2) The STATMED BOARDS WORKSHOP for the self-identified “bad test-taker.”
The STATMed Class, offered live in-person and live online, is a 12-day study skills course ideal for med students looking for the best study methods, time management tools, and test-taking strategies; it is suited for any classroom-based learner as well as anyone who is studying independently for boards.
The STATMed Boards Workshop is a one-on-one online workshop for anyone at a boards prep level who believes their knowledge is good enough to pass but that they just can’t sort out their test-taking issues on their own. If you think this sounds like you, read more about our platforms here, or reach out to talk to us any time.
To learn more, check out our Frequently Asked Questions.
Our Team
Ryan Orwig, MS
My name is Ryan Orwig, and I am a reading and learning specialist. I created The STATMed Learning Program in 2012 when I realized no one was teaching smart med students and physicians the best way to study or how to fix their test-taking issues. Ever since I started working in the field of education in 1998 with gifted children and adults with learning problems, I have endeavored to develop effective methodologies to help these students unlock their abilities. I am generally disappointed with the way we teach smart people how to study, and I am generally unhappy with the insights, methods, and tools I have read about and seen taught elsewhere. That’s why I used my expertise as an educator and reading specialist to build all of our STATMed tools from the ground up to meet the needs of med students, physicians, and those in related fields (veterinarians, PAs, and Pharm Ds) who are seeking the best learning and test-taking strategies so they can unlock their potential and make all of their hard work pay off on test day in both the classroom and on board exams.
My educational background started when I was an undergraduate at Marshall University in my hometown of Huntington, WV, as a tutor. I then taught high school in Baltimore at a college-prep high school for students with learning issues. At this point I knew I wanted to identify patterns and build better systems for these students; I just didn’t know how. I then earned my M.S. in Teaching, Learning, and Leadership with an Emphasis in Reading from Oklahoma State University in 2004 with the goal of working with gifted adults. This led to working exclusively with medical students and physicians from 2005 to 2012 as the Coordinator of the Medical H.E.L.P. (Higher Education for Learning Problems) Program at Marshall University. As a side project in 2010, I created Orwig Learning Systems to provide more educational support for medical students. When the demand for my expertise continued to grow, I left Marshall and focused all of my efforts on STATMed Learning (originally called “The STAT Program”).
In 2013 I joined the prestigious faculty of the National Emergency Medical Board Review program. In 2014 I became an adjunct professor at The School of Pharmacy at Notre Dame of Maryland University, where I teach an annual version of The STATMed Class as part of the curriculum. My mission is to help medical students and doctors maximize their potential through the constantly evolving platforms of The STATMed Class (study skills for classroom learning and boards prep) and The STATMed Boards Workshop (a one-on-one online workshop where we turn bad test-takers into good test-takers).
David LaSalle, MA
Hello everyone, my name is David LaSalle, and since 1997, I have been working with bright learners of all ages to help overcome issues with reading, attention, learning, and test-taking. Over the course of my career, I have helped groups ranging from dyslexic first-graders to doctors struggling with boards exams. Prior to joining STATMed Learning full I time, I have been a teacher, tutor, executive function coach, curriculum designer, and administrator at Valley Academy and the Jemicy School in Maryland.
My reading specialist certifications include training in the Orton-Gillingham methodology, the Wilson Reading system, and the Lindamood-Bell program. With almost two decades of helping gifted minds understand their own patterns and overcome their challenges, I am uniquely positioned to work with STATMed clients as they first understand and then redesign their own individual learning systems. I have earned a Masters in Education from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland. I joined STATMed Learning in 2013, started teaching STATMed Classes in 2014, and became the Boards Workshop Lead Instructor in 2015.