Everything Parents & IP Students Should Know About the International Medicine and Disease Olympiad (IMDO)

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05 Aug 2025, 00:00 Z

TL;DR
The International Medicine and Disease Olympiad (IMDO) is an annual, fully-online biomedical contest first held in 2015. Teams of four high-schoolers sit a single 3-hour paper that blends multiple-choice and free-response clinical reasoning. Singapore students usually qualify through the USMDO/IMDO National Selection each May. Beyond medals, the syllabus cross-trains the analytical reading, graph-parsing and dimensional-analysis fluency prized in IP Mathematics & Physics.

1 What exactly is the IMDO?

The IMDO bills itself as the “World Championship” medical-knowledge/problem-solving competition for high-school students and is run each year by the non-profit IMDO Foundation Board.
The inaugural edition took place in San Diego (2015) and the event has remained online since 2020 to keep costs low for global teams.
Recent participation averages 25-30 countries; public scoreboards are posted after moderation.

1.1 Why parents of IP learners should care

Biomedical case-analysis forces students to convert prose into flow-charts, crunch proportional data and defend conclusions—skills that map directly onto IP WA graph questions and Paper 4 practical evaluation paragraphs.

2 Exam structure & syllabus snapshot

Section	Question count	Marks	Coverage
Multiple-choice	120	240	Anatomy, pathology, pharmacology, epidemiology
Free-response	6-8 data-analysis items	60	Case history interpretation, imaging reads, dosage maths

Duration: \(3 \space \text{h}\) single sitting, proctored online.
Next edition: 16 Aug 2025 (posted in the official rules dated 19 Jun 2024).
Calculators are allowed; internet searches or AI tools are banned (screen-share + webcam monitoring).

2.1 Topic weighting

The rules state a “roughly equal” split between basic science (physiology, microbiology) and clinical reasoning (differential diagnosis, management paths).

3 Pathway for Singapore students

USMDO/IMDO National Qualifier — a 90-minute paper held online in May; top four form “Team Singapore”.
Team training camp — 4-6 weekend webinars covering high-yield systems, drug classes and question-writing drills.
International round — August paper + virtual award ceremony.

Cost: 2024 Singapore qualifier fee was USD 35, international round fee USD 110 per student (covers exam platform & medals).

4 What the results tell us

Year	Gold nations	Cut-off (approx.)
2024	China, USA, Brazil	75 %
2023	USA, Canada, Thailand	72 %
2022	USA, Singapore, Romania	70 %

Detailed ranked lists are downloadable from the “Results” tab on the IMDO site.

5 Transferable skills for IP Math & Physics

IMDO task	Mirrors which IP skill?	Resource to bridge
Drug-dosage dimensional analysis	Unit-conversion drills in Quantities & Measurement	1) Quantities & Measurement guide
Reading Kaplan-Meier survival curves	Gradient extraction in Paper 4 LINEST	Measurement & Uncertainty post
Interpreting ECG amplitudes	Oscilloscope waveform reading in Circuits	16) Circuits guide
Calculating infection \(R_0\)	Exponential decay/growth in Radioactivity	20) Nuclear Physics guide

6 Timeline & action plan (2024-25 cycle)

Window	Action for families
Jan 2025	Download 2024 papers; sit MCQ half-paper under 90 min.
Mar	Register for Singapore qualifier (check USMDO page).
May	Sit national qualifier; if selected, block out weekend camp dates.
Jun-Jul	Practise 2 cross-disciplinary FRQs per week + 1 timed MCQ set.
16 Aug	IMDO international round.
Sep	Add certificate to DSA / scholarships portfolio.

7 Preparation resources

2022-24 past papers with answer keys — IMDO Resources page
Practice quizzes in Anki format — USMDO Study Bank
Free open-access textbook Anatomy & Physiology — OpenStax
Clinical statistics crash course — BMJ “Medical Statistics” collection

8 Call-to-action

Parents: If your IP child enjoys biology and already juggles Math/Physics WAs well, consider the IMDO as a low-cost, CV-visible challenge that sharpens graph-reading and dimensional-analysis.
Students: Attempt one 30-question IMDO MCQ block this weekend and mark it using the 2024 key—you will instantly see which organ systems or statistics tricks need patching.