Clinical Immersion Internship Introduces Students to Needs Assessment

Abstract

Miiri Kotche is a Clinical Associate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and currently serves as Director of the Medical Accelerator for Devices Laboratory (MAD Lab) at the UIC Innovation Center. Prior to joining the faculty at UIC, she worked in new product development for medical devices, telecommunications and consumer products. She co-teaches bioengineering capstone design courses, including the core senior design sequence and the recently launched interdisciplinary medical product development course.

Perspectives on Bioengineering Clinical Immersion: History, Innovation, and Impact

“…Table 1 lists the clinical immersion programs funded through NIH/NIBIB R25 ''Team-Based Design in Biomedical Engineering Education''. 2,7,12,15,[17][18][19]23,31,32,34,40 Many of these programs have been informed by the Biodesign Program at Stanford University. 6 The Biodesign program consists of several components, including a 10-month Innovation Fellowship for participants who have relevant prior experience and/or advanced degrees in STEM, healthcare, business, law, or design, 33 and courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.…”

“…While a needs-based approach is common, content and implementation varies. 1,2,8,12,15,[17][18][19]21,23,28,30,34,38,40 Program content is scoped to leverage institutional strengths and emphasize selected areas of focus such as technology transfer, commercialization, FDA regulatory considerations, insurance reimbursements, or intellectual property. Further, some programs foster interdisciplinary teamwork among engineering disciplines (undergraduate and graduate), business, nursing, and medical students.…”

“…Recognizing the ''deep dive'' engineering students take into the clinical environments, participants were asked to keep a blog to encourage reflection on their experiences. 9,18 In 2015, the program was expanded to 12 undergraduate bioengineering students as well as additional clinical departments. 18 We also included Friday workshops for teams to further analyze clinical observations and research solutions to identified needs.…”

Clinical Immersion and Team-Based Design: Into a Third Year

“…2,3,4 Practical aspects including patient care, technology commercialization and healthcare intricacies are also a necessary part of student training to meet health, medical device, and patient needs while also controlling costs. 6,7 A summer experience was developed for Summer Scholars and consisted of an overview of the Stanford Biodesign Process, physiology basics, clinical immersion, intellectual property basics, regulatory basics, business perspectives, and product development best practices. Deliverables included need statements, specifications, and project development plans.…”

Diseases, Devices, and Patients: Exposing BME Students to the Patient Experience

“…In senior design-related experiences, students have a plethora of design-related and designinfluencing opportunities including clinical immersion to identify potential targets for senior capstone projects [1][2][3][4], working with external clinical mentors [5], learning and applying regulatory and intellectual property guidelines [6], conducting rapid design challenges [7,8], and many more [9]. Furthermore, the design experience may be patient-oriented with students interacting directly with patients [10].…”