Students build medical school training devices

A group of Washington State University bioengineering students worked together with medical students to develop prototype devices for medical training.

Three teams of senior-level bioengineering students worked with students in the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine on the year-long projects aimed at improving medical education and patient care. The work which was part of a year-long capstone class, gives the bioengineering students a real-world challenge to develop their engineering skills while providing the medical students with a chance to hone their skills.

The projects were mutually beneficial, said Assistant Professor Dmitri Tolkatchev in the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering who teaches the capstone class. In addition to Tolkatchev, Professor Olivia Coiado, assistant dean for student and resident research in the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, coordinated collaboration with the medical students. David Thiessen, scholarly associate professor in the Voiland School, supported another group's bioprocessing project.

"In addition to fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, all the projects had the goal of improving healthcare problems," said Coiado.

The medical projects focused on teaching and simulation devices for medical students. One team created a training simulator for students to learn about arterial pressure and oxygen saturation. The device provides real-time data to help medical students practice and become comfortable with common tools that are used every day to make clinical decisions and decide on a diagnosis.

Another group developed a laparoscopic surgery training device - a box-like simulator that could allow medical students to practice minimally invasive, laparoscopic procedures before trying out the procedures on cadavers or a patient. Like the game Operation, the simulator beeps when a student makes a surgical error. A third project focused on airway management, with students designing a realistic intubation trainer that mimics the feel of human tissue.

"Each year, our engineering students learn to turn unmet needs into working prototypes," said Tolkatchev. "The projects come with real sponsors and real problems."

The students have to identify the need, define constraints, propose an engineering solution, manage their teams, build the prototype, test it, and document the process. The budget is intentionally limited with a strict timeline.

"The pressure is real - that is the point," he said. "No one hands them a neat little path to success. It is their first real exposure to the world where vague problems, incomplete information, limited resources, difficult teamwork, and hard deadlines all exist at the same time."

The students prepared documentation modeled on what would be needed for a medical-device-style submission, including its intended use, requirements, constraints, testing logic, risk thinking, and design history.

"This is the kind of education I believe in: students solving real problems, building real things, and learning that engineering is not just knowing formulas. It is making something work under pressure, documenting it clearly, and communicating it with the precision needed for others to trust it, use it, and build on it," said Tolkatchev.