In The News
Hilton Head, SC. July 1, 2025.
A new AI-powered medical translation platform created by a longtime Hilton Head surgeon aims to solve one of American healthcare’s biggest problems: patients not understanding their own medical records.
Dr. Chris Wixon, a vascular surgeon who has practiced in the Lowcountry for more than two decades, launched RosettaMD on June 18th. The free, ad-free tool allows users to paste or upload medical documents—such as CT scans, lab reports or discharge summaries—and receive immediate, plain-English explanations.
“There’s no reason a patient should feel panic reading their own chart,” Wixon said. “RosettaMD is about replacing fear with clarity. That starts with language people actually understand.”
The platform requires no login, collects no data, and operates without ads or upsells. Wixon, who founded Bluffton-based ArchimedesMedical to build the app, said the idea came from personal experience.
“My brother had a cancer scare,” Wixon said. “He read his CT report and assumed the worst. It turned out to be a common, harmless finding—but that moment stuck with me. I realized how often this happens in my own practice.”
RosettaMD has already translated more than 15,000 real-world medical documents and is being used by cancer patients preparing for second opinions, parents managing pediatric diagnoses, seniors navigating imaging results and caregivers coordinating care.
Unlike symptom-checkers or chatbots, the platform uses physician-trained, deterministic AI that produces the same trusted output every time. The underlying engine was built using more than half a million medical language patterns and plain-English interpretations.
Wixon said he chose to stay in the Lowcountry—not Silicon Valley—because this is where the need was most visible. “In Hilton Head and Bluffton, patients walk in with folders full of records they don’t understand,” he said. “This tool is for them.”
RosettaMD is available at rosettamd.com. It is free to use and does not store or transmit data.
“This isn’t about replacing doctors,” Wixon said. “It’s about making sure people understand what their doctors write. That understanding is what leads to better outcomes—and peace of mind.
Hilton Head, 2025. July 1, 2025.
A new AI-powered medical translation platform created by a longtime Hilton Head surgeon aims to solve one of American healthcare’s biggest problems: patients not understanding their own medical records.
Dr. Chris Wixon, a vascular surgeon who has practiced in the Lowcountry for more than two decades, launched RosettaMD on June 18th. The free, ad-free tool allows users to paste or upload medical documents—such as CT scans, lab reports or discharge summaries—and receive immediate, plain-English explanations.
“There’s no reason a patient should feel panic reading their own chart,” Wixon said. “RosettaMD is about replacing fear with clarity. That starts with language people actually understand.”
The platform requires no login, collects no data, and operates without ads or upsells. Wixon, who founded Bluffton-based ArchimedesMedical to build the app, said the idea came from personal experience.
“My brother had a cancer scare,” Wixon said. “He read his CT report and assumed the worst. It turned out to be a common, harmless finding—but that moment stuck with me. I realized how often this happens in my own practice.”
RosettaMD has already translated more than 15,000 real-world medical documents and is being used by cancer patients preparing for second opinions, parents managing pediatric diagnoses, seniors navigating imaging results and caregivers coordinating care.
Unlike symptom-checkers or chatbots, the platform uses physician-trained, deterministic AI that produces the same trusted output every time. The underlying engine was built using more than half a million medical language patterns and plain-English interpretations.
Wixon said he chose to stay in the Lowcountry—not Silicon Valley—because this is where the need was most visible. “In Hilton Head and Bluffton, patients walk in with folders full of records they don’t understand,” he said. “This tool is for them.”
RosettaMD is available at rosettamd.com. It is free to use and does not store or transmit data.
“This isn’t about replacing doctors,” Wixon said. “It’s about making sure people understand what their doctors write. That understanding is what leads to better outcomes—and peace of mind.
Hilton Head, SC. July 16, 2025.
Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Wixon.
Hi Chris, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My story, and the journey to RosettaMD, began about five years ago. As a practicing vascular surgeon, I found myself grappling with a deep sense of physician burnout, so profound I nearly left medicine. Before I gave up, though, I needed to understand why I was so exhausted.
What I realized was my frustration stemmed from the massive investments we were making in electronic health systems that simply weren’t delivering meaningful returns. Instead of quitting, I decided to channel that energy into building solutions. I started developing language models aimed at supporting population health and value-based care initiatives, focusing on how to normalize complex medical data.
Then came my Eureka moment, strikingly personal. My own brother faced a serious illness, and while he had access to his reports through his patient portal, they were largely useless to him. In fact, reading them only increased his anxiety. He’d call me, desperate to understand specific findings, and I realized I was constantly acting as his personal ‘RosettaMD,’ translating his complex medical reports for him.
It suddenly dawned on me: the very models I was developing to tackle large-scale population health problems could be used to help individual patients directly. Instead of endlessly searching for medical terms online, we could seamlessly integrate easily understandable definitions right into the medical narrative itself, empowering patients with clarity.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh, absolutely not. The road to RosettaMD has certainly been anything but smooth. While the ‘Eureka moment’ was crystal clear, bringing it to life has involved navigating significant obstacles.
One major challenge has been the inherent complexity of medical language itself. It’s far more than just jargon; it’s nuanced, often ambiguous, and varies by specialty. Building an AI that tool that can accurately identify and interpret an endless number into clear, everyday definitions, demanded immense technical innovation and a deep, physician-led understanding of the domain.
Another significant hurdle has been the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs). We’ve watched nearly the entire industry gravitate towards these massive, general-purpose solutions. Yet, we’ve firmly held to our belief: for the critical task of precisely interpreting medical narrative, our smaller, specially trained language models consistently outperform LLMs on cost, speed, and deterministic accuracy. Sticking to this principle and proving its superiority in an LLM-dominated landscape has been a challenging, but ultimately rewarding, part of our journey.
Finally, our commitment to keeping RosettaMD free, ad-free, account-free, and never saving user data posed unique engineering demands. Designing a high-performance, accurate AI that operates under such strict privacy guardrails required creative solutions.
Ultimately, each of these obstacles has only strengthened our resolve, refining RosettaMD into the powerful tool it is today.”
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My work today truly bridges two worlds that are deeply personal to me: I continue my practice as a vascular surgeon, having done so for 25 years, while also leading Archimedes Medical as its founder.
What I specialize in, and what I’m becoming known for, is tackling one of healthcare’s most persistent and painful problems: the communication gap. As a physician, I’ve spent decades trying to explain complex diagnoses and procedures. But the biggest revelation came outside the operating room – seeing how confusing medical jargon in patient records created immense anxiety and disempowerment. This led me to specialize in semantic interoperability – essentially, teaching computers to truly understand the nuanced language of healthcare.
I’m known for bringing a unique, physician-led perspective to AI and Natural Language Processing. It’s not just about building algorithms; it’s about encoding real clinical insight and the ‘texture’ of patient narratives into technology. My background as a surgeon, combined with my passion for physics and NLP, allows us to create solutions that are both profoundly accurate and deeply empathetic.
What sets us apart, and what I’m most proud of, is our unwavering commitment to putting the individual first. Our flagship product, RosettaMD, stems directly from that mission: it’s physician-led, consumer-first, and absolutely privacy-first – no ads, no accounts, and critically, no data saved. This isn’t just a feature; it’s our core principle, ensuring people can finally understand their own health information without fear or compromise.
Beyond RosettaMD, I’m incredibly proud of the broader work at Archimedes Medical to build the underlying NLP engine, HER-BERT, which can translate medical language into both human-readable clarity and precise, machine-ready formats. This dual capability is what will truly advance value-based care and population health. To see patients, like the one with malignancy, tell us they no longer fear their scan results – that is the greatest reward, and it fuels our drive to empower a healthier, more informed future for all.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
If there’s one final message I’d like to share with your readers, it’s this:
Understanding your health is your right, not a privilege. We encourage everyone in South Carolina to explore RosettaMD.com. It’s completely free, absolutely private, and designed to put clarity directly into your hands. In an increasingly complex world, navigating your health shouldn’t add to your anxieties. We built RosettaMD to empower you to engage with your medical information confidently, turning confusion into control. Give it a try and experience the peace of mind that comes with true understanding.
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