AMOpportunities turns 10 this year, and to celebrate, we’re reflecting on the past decade. In this month’s series, we look back on ten moments of growth. Each of these moments helped AMO become what it is today and set the foundation for tomorrow’s growth.

 

1) A Fateful Meeting

While CEO Kyle Swinsky had spent his college years working alongside international medical students as the president of his university’s AMSA chapter, it is difficult to imagine AMOpportunities if he had never met COO Ben Bradley.

While the two lived in the same apartment building, it was more than an address they shared. They also shared a vision for an organization that could make a difference on a global scale.

Out of this shared vision, the seed was planted for what would grow into AMO. In 2013, the company officially opened.

 

2) The First Hire

Working out of their college apartments, the company was growing rapidly. Kyle and Ben saw the need to bring on another team member and hired Ryan Flores to support trainees from onboarding through their rotations. Ryan would be AMO’s first hire, which allowed Kyle and Ben more time to focus on marketing and recruiting more physicians to precept trainees.

Today, Ryan serves as AMO’s Chief Revenue Officer.

 

3) To the Windy City

Today, AMOpportunities is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The move to Chicago in the summer of 2014 was necessary to support AMO’s continued growth. Not only is the city one of the U.S.’ largest cities, it is also a well-known healthcare hub.

This made Chicago an easy place to connect with top physicians. Home to one of the country’s largest airports, it was also an accessible place for trainees from around the world to fly into for their rotations.

While AMO now hosts rotations all across the country, Chicago remains among the most popular locations for trainees to rotate.

 

4) Building the Platform

Today, one of AMO’s most distinguishing features is its software and marketplace. It provides both trainees a one-stop-shop to search and apply for rotations. For host sites, AMO’s platform centralizes trainee information and helps streamline communication across all team members.

However, AMO’s software did not arrive until the company hired Malek Yala. Malek was hired shortly after the move to Chicago and was tasked with building the company’s website, which set the foundation for the AMO of today. In the year after the website launched, business doubled for a third straight year.

Malek would go on to spend eight years with AMO as the company’s Chief Technology Officer.

 

5) Growth that Matters

The company’s biggest breakthrough came when it applied and was accepted into the healthcare startup incubator, Matter. This provided the company working space at Matter, a coworking space above Chicago’s Merchandise Mart. No longer running out of apartments, Kyle and Ben began to seek funding that would allow the company to grow at a faster pace.

 

6) The New Ventures Competition

A second, arguably bigger break came while Kyle was earning his MBA at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Convinced by a classmate to enter the New Venture Challenge, AMO would stand out from the 300 other applicants and win the 2017 NVC.

As part of winning the NVC, AMO received $100,000 and was given the stage to raise its seed round of funding. During this stage, AMO brought on OCA Ventures and HealthX as investors.

Rapid growth was imminent. In the year after winning the NVC, AMO expanded to 25 employees, opened its first office, and raised $3 million in Series A funding.

 

7) If You Can Dreamit…

Winning the NVC also gave AMO the portfolio to be accepted into Dreamit Ventures, an accelerator for startups ready to scale. This provided AMO a new platform and audience. Through its work with Dreamit, AMO participated in sprints that put the company in front of healthcare leaders and executives that were looking to develop clinical training at their hospitals.

 

8) Virtual Rotations

Ever reliant on in-person capacity at hospitals and clinics, the COVID-19 pandemic proved a difficult moment for a company that was only seven years old. However, an innovative approach not only solved a problem, it predicted a change in how medical training would be done moving forward.

AMO would launch virtual rotations in response to the pandemic. These rotations utilized telehealth technologies that were already rising in popularity among patients and providers during the pandemic.

Today, AMO offers more than 40 virtual rotations, and in 2022 one-in-five trainees participated in a virtual rotation

 

9) Ponce and Mercy

Beyond working with individual trainees, AMO also aims to help schools expand their clinical training availability and health systems expand their clinical training capacity. In 2021, combined these efforts in a consulting role that brought Ponce Health Sciences University’s St. Louis, Missouri campus into partnership with Mercy Health System.

AMO helped PHSU identify Mercy as a training site for its students, establishing an ongoing relationship between the school and hospital that will benefit students and patients alike.

 

10) Working with U.S. Schools

The Ponce deal helped establish AMO as a figure innovating the U.S. healthcare education system. In the two years since the Ponce deal, AMO has grown its efforts to work with U.S. medical schools, PA programs, and nursing schools.

Now partnered with multiple schools and programs in the U.S., AMO provides clinical training for hundreds of U.S. healthcare students each year.