Team-Based Design for Clinical Translation

PROJECT SUMMARY The overall objective of this proposal is to infuse clinical inspired design throughout a biomedical engineering curriculum. We propose to develop a summer clinical immersion program based on the value of multi- disciplinary input and interactive student mentoring in problem finding. Deliverables from the summer experience will impact courses throughout the curriculum by providing open-ended, problem-based case studies that will engage aspects of design thinking and application of specific course material. The summer experience will also seed projects for a senior design course, focused on the creation of medical device prototypes and skills development that emphasize multidisciplinary communication. To promote co-learning and the further integration of design across the curriculum, senior student teams will apply their learning to lead workshop activities in other classes. This will serve to connect different level thinkers and experiences across student cohorts. The proposed project has strong enthusiasm and commitment from established partnerships between biomedical engineering faculty, clinicians in the College of Medicine, clinicians in the College of Veterinary Medicine, industry leaders, and administration. Our goal is to emphasize translational opportunities throughout the maturation of novice problem solvers to open-ended decision makers. Specifically, the new summer clinical immersion experience will bi-directionally integrate the value of design thinking across the department through the completion of the following inter-related aims: Aim 1: To develop and implement a summer clinical immersion program with multi-disciplinary input and enhanced student interaction. Aim 2: To seed fundamental biomedical engineering courses across the curriculum with clinically inspired design problems. Aim 3: To facilitate bidirectional co-learning to enhance the senior design and entire biomedical engineering curriculum. Biomedical engineering at UF is primed to make the proposed jump in design education based on over 40 established relationships with clinicians, the existing engagement of 13 industry partners, and a developing curriculum that makes design integration possible. The proposed course and programmatic innovations will provide a curriculum model that can be disseminated to other departments with the overall goal of enhancing biomedical engineering design education to ensure students self-identity as clinical translators.