04/02/2026
The EPEC Origin Story – Post 4: Building the MVP:
Once I started questioning how ECGs were being taught, something else became impossible to ignore.
I realised I remembered far more from some speakers than others — even when they taught the same topic.
It wasn’t the slides.
It wasn’t the guidelines.
It was storytelling.
When ECGs were wrapped inside real cases, real patients, real uncertainty, and real consequences, they STUCK.
When they were taught as isolated patterns, they EVAPORATED.
So I did what many of us do when we struggle:
I searched the market.
I explored:
• Online ECG courses
• Conference workshops
• Books and recorded lectures
There was excellent cardiology teaching, but almost nothing designed from an Emergency Medicine mindset. (This was years before I discovered Amal Mattu videos)
Nothing that reflected the chaos, time pressure, and incomplete information we face in the ED.
That’s when a hard truth hit me:
👉 The course I needed didn’t exist.
So I stopped looking for it… and started building it.
The first version wasn’t called EPEC.
It wasn’t polished.
It wasn’t even a “course.”
It was just real cases, shared with friends, one by one.
Slowly, a structure emerged - what I later learned is called a Minimal Viable Product (MVP).
Still, I wasn’t sure this approach would work beyond my small circle.
Then came a turning point.
In January 2015, I was invited to deliver a 2-hour webinar at the Egyptian Critical Care Summit.
Real cases.
Real ECGs.
Real decision points.
No pattern memorisation, just clinical reasoning.
The feedback was phenomenal.
That was the first spark.
In the next post, I’ll share:
• How that MVP quietly evolved into what became the next version of EPEC
• The surprise I encountered in the very first EPEC course, and what it taught me
The story was only just beginning.
📅 Mark your Wednesdays.
Every Wednesday, one lesson from a 10-year journey of building EPEC.
💙 Where Knowledge Meets Passion
