Clinical Immersion for Biomedical Engineers: Pivoting to a Virtual Format

Throughout their curriculum, Biomedical Engineering (BME) undergraduate students become proficient in math, biomedical science, and their engineering specialization. BME senior capstone design courses often focus on medical device design, and we frequently hear from collaborators in the BME industry how important it is for young biomedical engineers to be exposed to clinical experiences to truly understand the environment and constraints that must be considered for successful design of medical devices. Furthermore, with clinicians being one of the major users of devices developed by biomedical engineers, it is valuable for biomedical engineers to spend time interacting with clinicians, learn the language of the clinical environment, and experience the state-of-the-art and present limitations of clinical care. However, there are very few opportunities for Colorado State University (CSU) BME students to gain significant exposure to clinical settings. Experiential clinical programs for BME students can provide this opportunity, resulting in better preparedness to solve real-world problems, identify needs related to clinical settings, and apply knowledge learned in the classroom setting. Clinical simulationbased training and clinical immersion (CI) programs are two approaches to providing experiential clinical experience for BME students. Clinical simulationbased training has been found to be a valuable tool for BME students to practice hands-on real-world needs finding and device development. CI programs for BME students help students feel better prepared for their capstone design experience, promote a strong understanding of user centered design, an improved ability to work with clinicians to define unmet needs, and positive impacts on the students’ career interests and ability to find their first employment position. To bring CI opportunities to more BME students, NIH/ NIBIB has provided funding to create these programs at more than 25 institutions across the United States through the R25 ‘‘Team-Based Design in Biomedical Engineering Education’’. Through this NIH/NIBIB funding mechanism, CSU and University of Colorado Health Medical Center of the Rockies (UCH-MCR) have run a collaborative summer CI program for BME students in summer 2018 and summer 2019. In this program, students attended patient rounds, observed surgical procedures and engaged with clinicians at UCH-MCR and related clinics, and interacted with product/device representatives on a full-time basis for 7 weeks. Weekly meetings were attended by the program participants and directors (a surgeon and a BME senior capstone design instructor), allowing for debriefing, additional questions and discussions related to participant experiences and observations from the previous week, and discussion of unmet clinical needs. When available, guests such as medical device product representatives gave lectures pertinent to product development. A senior capstone design project was developed each summer, based on needs assessment by the participating students and their discussions with clinicians. The capstone design project was then completed by an interdisciplinary student team within the BME senior capstone design course in the following academic year, with advising from a clinician and an industry engineer. This CI program was planned to continue for summer 2020, but just after completing interviews with Address correspondence to Ellen P. Brennan-Pierce, School of Biomedical Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA. Electronic mail: ellen.brennan-pierce@colostate.edu Biomedical Engineering Education ( 2020) https://doi.org/10.1007/s43683-020-00032-x BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING SOCIETY