Clinical Immersion Program to Enhance Interdisciplinary Biomedical Engineering Senior Capstone Design

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Project Summary Biomedical Engineering (BME) undergraduate students at Colorado State University (CSU) complete two B.S. degrees, in BME and a partner major of either Mechanical Engineering, Chemical and Biological Engineering, or Electrical Engineering. Throughout the five year curriculum, these students become proficient in math, biomedical science, and their chosen engineering specialization. Much of CSU's two-semester BME Senior Capstone Design course focuses on medical device design, and it is important for young biomedical engineers to spend time in the clinic to truly understand the environment and constraints that must be considered for successful design of medical devices. However, as a university that is not affiliated with a medical school, there are very few opportunities for CSU's BME students to gain significant exposure to clinical settings. The overall goal of this proposal is to enhance the existing interdisciplinary team-based BME Senior Capstone Design course at CSU by providing a summer clinical immersion program at University of Colorado Health Medical Center of the Rockies, a Level II Trauma Center. The recurring seven week full-time clinical immersion experience during the summer before senior year will be comprised of one week rotations through specific specialty areas: Anesthesia, Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery, Cardiology, Cardiovascular Surgery, Pulmonary Medicine, Neonatology and Interventional Radiology. Addition of the clinical immersion program during the summer before the BME Senior Capstone Design course will allow for the students in this program to participate in needs assessment and project identification as they work with clinicians to co-develop ideas that can be incorporated into open-ended senior design projects for that academic year. Such projects will be co-advised by a clinician and an industry partner, so students working on the project can benefit from expertise in both practical use of the device/technology of interest as well as the design and regulatory processes required for development of the device/technology. These experiences will better prepare students for competitive careers in medical device development and technologies, and the resulting senior design projects will contribute to advances in medicine and improved patient care.