Addressing Clinical Challenges Through Innovation
Delivering high-quality, equitable, and cost-efficient healthcare are
major challenges. The obesity epidemic, an aging population, and rising
costs continually test the modern healthcare system. As an answer to
these mounting demands, innovative technologies seek to alleviate
clinical problems and advance patient care. For example, healthcare
informatics and machine learning have harnessed routinely captured
patient data to optimize care delivery and improve treatment outcomes
(Sharma et al. 2018). Robotic surgery has been increasingly utilized for
minimally invasive surgeries to reduce morbidity compared to open
procedures (George et al. 2018).
Medical innovations that redefine clinical practice often benefit from
insight on human factors and patient-centered design (Thimbleby 2013).
Physicians are first-hand observers of the obstacles faced in healthcare
and well-positioned to be the catalysts for “disruptive technologies”.
However, most physicians do not receive the necessary training and
skills to develop and market such technologies that could remedy
clinical problems (Niccum et al. 2017). Unlike basic science coursework
and clinical skills, technical design concepts and innovation strategies
are not commonly taught within the medical school curriculum, a
formative time for physician development (Niccum et al. 2017). While
medical students recognize the need for formal training in innovation,
leadership, and transdisciplinary collaboration, less than 10% of
medical education programs in the United States directly address these
core values (Niccum et al. 2017; Brazile et al. 2018; Sendak et al.
2021). Nevertheless, the National Academies of Medicine, American
Medical Association, and Association of Medical Colleges have all
stipulated that technological innovation should be a key component of
medical education, especially in the context of machine learning
(Wartman and Combs 2018; Matheny et al. 2020; Sendak et al. 2021).
Fortunately, select medical schools have initiated programs specifically
aimed at enhancing medical innovation and transdisciplinary
collaboration (Niccum et al. 2017; Coiado and Ahmad 2020; Sendak et al.
2021). Herein we discuss the University of Minnesota’s 10-year
experience with the Scott and Sue Augustine Biomedical Engineering
Fellowship (referred to as the “Augustine” program), a joint
engineering and medical training program designed to educate and guide
aspiring physician-innovators to become effective leaders in developing
cutting-edge biomedical technologies. In this review, we detail the
novel program design, perspectives from practicing physician graduates,
and considerations for medical schools that may implement an engineering
and innovation curriculum.