Biomedical engineering education最新文献

Immersion in clinical environments is generally believed to be a valuable experiential learning opportunity for students in biomedical engineering, both at the undergraduate and the graduate level. Immersion is believed to foster an understanding of medical culture, clinical operations, interprofessional collaboration, and oftentimes allows students to either identify unmet clinical needs. The National Institutes of Health supports efforts through grants to incorporate these clinical immersion programs into biomedical engineering curricula, and this has potentially facilitated an expansion of these programs across the United States. Unknown is how common clinical immersion experiences are in biomedical engineering programs, in general how these are organized and executed, and their goals. We conducted a survey of biomedical engineering programs to learn how many programs offer clinical immersion experiences, over what timeframe and in what formats, and what is known about their goals and learning outcomes. We present here the results of that survey which includes 52 clinical immersion courses and programs, 14 of which either are or were previously funded by the NIH. Each of these courses or programs engages, on average, about 27 students per year, but range in size from 2 to 160. The duration of the immersion experience likewise varies greatly from 3 to 400 h. The objectives of these programs are mostly to identify problems, develop engineering solutions to problems, or to learn clinical procedures. Despite the impressive breadth of experiences revealed by this survey, we still know relatively little about their impact on student learning, motivation, identity, or career path. Desired outcomes and assessment strategies must be better aligned with the structure of the clinical immersion experiences themselves if we are to determine if they are effective in meeting those outcomes, including those of professional preparation.

In this paper, we altered an in-person high school tissue engineering program to create a virtual course. Through this alteration, we aimed to show that online programs can still be engaging and at the same time provide greater accessibility and flexibility to students. This was achieved through utilizing Google classroom as a virtual platform for students to engage with course modules and assessments. After analyzing pre- and post-program survey responses in both the in-person and online offerings of the CardioStart program, it was found that students improved in their understanding of all of the tissue engineering topics that were introduced in the programs. Furthermore, when comparing the results from the in-person versus online offerings of the program, it was found that the level of student understanding and learning of these topics was similar across the in-person and online programs. We were also able to engage five times the number of students online as compared to the in-person program, which was conducted yearly for six summers. However, many students indicated that their experience would have been better if hands-on activities were included to supplement their knowledge of cell culture techniques after completing the course. The online program improved accessibility and scalability of the program compared to in-person workshops. Future work will consist of bridging this virtual course and the hands-on experiments performed during the in-person program to provide interested students access to laboratory experiences.

Many biomedical engineering degree programs lack substantial immersive clinical experiences for undergraduate students, creating a need for clinical immersion programs that contribute to training objectives that emphasize current clinical needs (Becker in Eur J Eng Educ 31:261-272, 2006; Davis et al. in J Eng Educ 91:211-221, 2002; Dym et al. in J Eng Educ 94:103-120, 2005). Immersive clinical experiences have the potential to bridge the gap between clinical and non-clinical learning objectives in biomedical engineering curriculum. In collaboration with Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital, we have created, executed, and evaluated a two-week cardiovascular clinical immersion program for biomedical engineering undergraduate students at Purdue University. As of August 2022, this program has run 11 times since 2014 with 60 participants to date, exposing students to intensive and non-intensive care environments, facilitating interactions with medical professionals, and encouraging exploration of innovative technologies shaping the training of clinicians with direct patient interaction. The variety of cardiovascular topics discussed and clinical settings observed has provided students with a unique, highly beneficial learning opportunity. Keys to the continued success and growth of similar programs include: recruiting a diverse team, support from administrative staff/clinicians, a funded student intern position, and careful consideration of liability/risk management. Areas of future consideration include, streamlining the order of scheduled events, determining if offering course credit would be beneficial to students, and tracking career trajectories after participations.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the already increasing challenge of establishing immersive, co-curricular activities for engineering students, particularly for biomedical-related activities. In the current work, we outline a strategy for co-curricular learning that leverages a private-public partnership in which methods for capacity-building have enabled mutually beneficial outcomes for both organizations. A contemporary issue for many non-profits is identifying effective ways to build capacity for consistent service delivery while at the same time embracing the volunteer activities of students; a challenge is that the lifecycle of a university student is often not aligned (much shorter) with the needs of the non-profit. The public-private partnership simultaneously meets the service motivation of students with the needs of the host. This paper includes two case studies that illustrate the implementation of the methods for capacity-building and related outcomes.

Curriculum initiatives that provide the societal context of engineering practice can contribute to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) within the profession, as well as within the communities served by engineers. JEDI curriculum can foster diversity and inclusion by acknowledging and addressing social justice issues, providing a safe and inclusive space for students' voices to be heard, and advancing a productive dialogue within their institution of higher learning. Furthermore, such curriculum initiatives can empower students with the theoretical frameworks, analytical tools, and knowledge base to recognize and address ethical challenges and opportunities related to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in their field. This Teaching Tips paper offers a description of a pilot program to incorporate JEDI material within a core bioengineering course modeled on evidence-based curriculum programs to embed ethics within technical courses. The author and collaborators sought to achieve two aims with the JEDI-focused material: (1) for students to learn how justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion intersect with bioengineering practice through an interdisciplinary lens of history, philosophy, sociology and anthropology which provide strong scholarly frameworks and theoretical foundations and (2) for students to participate in and foster an inclusive environment within their own educational institution through effectively communicating about these topics with each other. At the conclusion of the semester, a student survey indicated an overwhelmingly positive reception of the material. This paper will discuss the interdisciplinary curriculum development initiative, how the learning objectives were addressed by the specific lesson plans, and challenges to be addressed to create a sustainable educational model for the program.

Online course delivery has increased in prevalence, particularly due to the onset in 2020 of the COVID-19 pandemic. Biomedical engineering laboratory courses pose unique challenges when transitioning to a remote or hybrid space. Here, we describe a novel approach to online lab delivery to improve student learning and engagement in a required introductory biomedical engineering laboratory class. The presented work focuses on the implementation and assessment of a novel approach to remote lab delivery named LabMate, which is a mobile, multi-view livestreaming platform that connects students to an in-person class remotely. Surveys of student and instructor participants assessed hardware quality and areas of improvement. Focus groups with students who had taken the course in an online format previously were conducted after a demonstration of the system. Survey responses were overall positive; however, some areas of improvement were identified, such as audio quality and video quality. Students and instructors appreciated the ability to deliver class synchronously online rather than perform make-up labs. Focus group participants found LabMate to be more engaging and enjoyable than prior online lab experiences. Students and instructors preferred LabMate over other online lab delivery methods. The students found the experience to be more dynamic and engaging, providing them with the opportunity to develop some of the core competencies of a biomedical engineering student.