Interdisciplinary Clinical Immersion: from Needs Identification to Concept Generation

Abstract

at Chicago. Anthony's current focus is on undergraduate engineering education and its restructuring to better meet the diverse needs of students and industries. Accordingly, Anthony teaches a wide array of Bioengineering courses, from Introduction to BioE to Senior Design, Bioinstrumentation, and Cell and Tissue Engineering. Anthony is also active in ophthalmology research-having co-formed and currently serving as a Technical Director for the ophthalmology-based medical device design lab (ORBITLab) at the UIC Innovation Center. Anthony holds a B.S. and Ph.D. in Bioengineering.

Work in Progress: A Clinical Immersion Program to Train Biomedical Engineers to Identify Unmet Health Needs in Urban Clinics

“…BME programs across the U.S. have leveraged an opportunity from the National Institutes of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) to establish clinical immersion programs for their students [1]. Published examples of such programs have combined structured instruction with immersion [2], connected immersion experiences to the broader BME curriculum [2]- [5], provided perspectives on medical economics [6], connected BME students with medical students [7], and established new ways for clinicians and engineers to collaborate on design problems [8]. Immersion programs also represent community-engaged experiences rich with discussion of health needs, disparities, and proposed actions.…”

Board 5: WIP: An Interdisciplinary Project Development Pipeline Connecting Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering and Medicine Students

“…To address this disconnect, some programs integrated clinical immersion into design curricula [11][12][13]. Similarly, our CIP also incorporated initial solution concepting based on identified needs [14]. Students found this inclusion meaningful as it took them beyond needs identification and into concept discussion and preliminary solution ideation accommodating a multitude of users [15].…”

Board 12: Work in progress: Assessment and impact of a Clinical Observations and Needs Finding service-learning course on Biomedical Engineering outcomes

“…Myriad undergraduate Biomedical Engineering programs have developed programs that seek to provide an element of "clinical immersion" for students to learn about real-world problems which can be solved by engineering design [1][2][3][4][5]. However, given the diversity of such programs across the country concerning resources available, such as proximity to a major medical school, teaching hospital, active residency programs, etc., it is challenging to derive a universal "one size fits all" approach for such a course, as well as challenges in reporting their efficacy [6][7][8].…”