For a decade, we turned medicine into stories. Now those stories earn CME.
NerdcoreMedical has spent over ten years building study aids and games that treat medicine like the story it is. NerdcoreMedical Digital is that same instinct, reborn as accredited narrative CME for the clinicians who never clock out.
- Est. 2009
- A decade of narrative medicine
- CME · CE
- Accredited credit
- Two titles
- Physicians & nurses
A decade of turning medicine into stories.
NerdcoreMedical was never a slide deck. It began as study aids and card games for people who love medicine and story in the same breath — and it has been evolving toward this moment ever since.
- 2009
A publishing start-up for med students
Founder Arun Mathews starts NerdcoreMedical to build study aids that treat medicine like the story it is — for friends who loved clinical medicine and geek culture in equal measure.
- The idea
Adding a game layer to learning
Teaming with game designer Brandon Patton — bassist for the godfather of nerdcore hip-hop, MC Frontalot — the studio starts wrapping medical education in real game mechanics.
- Defenders of Soma
Illustrated worlds, played by clinicians
Trading-card games and richly drawn universes like Defenders and Tales of Soma earn a Kickstarter following among students and physicians who learn best through narrative.
- 2018
A World-Changing Ideas finalist
Recognition that game-based, story-first medical education is not a novelty — it is a genuinely better way to help clinicians remember what matters.
- Now
The digital chapter
The same instincts, rebuilt for the screen and for credit: accredited narrative CME that plays like a nocturnal medical mystery — Locums Nocturnist for physicians and noctuRNe for nurses.
Two clinicians. Two games. One studio.
Tell us who you are and step straight into the story built for your license.
For physiciansLocums Nocturnist
A night-shift locum tenens thriller. Work through overnight clinical cases while uncovering the truth behind claims of a haunting — and earn AMA PRA Category 1 Credit while you do.
For nursesnoctuRNe
The ward after dark, through a nurse’s eyes. Triage, escalate, and advocate through branching cases that count toward ANCC contact hours.
A category that doesn’t exist yet — and an audience we already own.
Five million clinicians renew accredited credit on a fixed cycle they cannot skip. Serious games exist in CME — none of them tell a story like this.
US physicians requiring CME annually
US nurses requiring CE annually
Traditional US CME / CE market
Lifetime revenue, documented
Customers across 9 channels
Kickstarter backers, 3 campaigns
Paid marketing — all organic
Backed by a decade of NerdcoreMedical brand trust — the digital titles inherit that audience on day one.
Seven nights. One mystery. Real credit.
An homage to classic text adventures — a form that maps almost perfectly onto the read-weigh-commit rhythm of CME clinicians already know.
Play the night
Branching interactive fiction. Read the presentation, weigh the options, commit — and live with the outcome across seven nights.
The medicine is real
Heart failure, ACS, GI bleeds, cirrhosis, ICU escalation — bread-and-butter inpatient medicine, reviewed by a Stanford clinical advisor.
In 3–5 minute sessions
Episodic and autosaving through both the clinical scenarios and the mystery. Start and stop between patients, on any device.
Earn accredited credit
The Pro tier carries AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ for physicians and ANCC CE for nurses, convened through AMEDCO.
Reviewed at the bedside. Built for the deadline.
The pieces that usually take years to assemble are already in place — a working product, a credentialing path, and an audience a decade in the making.
The prototype exists
Locums Nocturnist is live and playable in beta today — not a deck, not a concept.
The accreditation path is clear
AMA PRA Category 1 and ANCC CE are established frameworks; the Pro tiers are built around them, convened through AMEDCO.
Distribution is already built
A decade of retail and brand presence gives the digital venture audience reach from day one.
The white space is wide open
The few serious games in CME are arcade drills and simulators — no one else is building long-form narrative fiction for credit.
Clinicians, operators, and artists — one team
Where the medicine and the storytelling never separate.
Arun Mathews, MD
Founder & CEO
Twenty-plus years of healthcare leadership and clinical medicine, keeping every product clinically grounded and medically relevant.
Zeeba Mathews, MD
Co-Founder & Operations
Twenty-four years in palliative care and fourteen in leadership; shapes operational strategy and clinical clarity.
Brandon Patton
COO
Oversees daily operations, production workflows, and international distribution, scaling products from concept to market.
Sasha Fairchok, MPH, MSc
Business Development Lead
Leads global partnerships and market expansion, blending biomedical, public-health, and design-driven strategy.
Raul Gonzalez
Lead Visual Designer
Creates medically informed, hand-crafted art whose visual traits reflect real pathology and treatment mechanisms.
Original ambient soundscapes composed by Ema Zamboni, written to adapt to clinical pace and outcome.
Be first through the door
Early access opens in waves. Tell us who you are and we’ll get you into the first cohort that fits — clinicians, institutions, and partners welcome.