Capstone During COVID-19: Medical Device Development at Home to Solve Global Health Problems
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Biomedical Engineering Education (Ó 2020) https://doi.org/10.1007/s43683-020-00035-8
Review
Capstone During COVID-19: Medical Device Development at Home to Solve Global Health Problems KELSEY P. KUBELICK,1,2 RUDOLPH L. GLEASON,1,3 JAMES K. RAINS,1 and JAMES B. STUBBS 1 1
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA; 2School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA; and 3The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA (Received 29 June 2020; accepted 30 September 2020)
CHALLENGE STATEMENT Capstone is a cornerstone of undergraduate biomedical engineering (BME) programs. At the Georgia Institute of Technology, Capstone is a onesemester course covering the product development cycle. Curriculum includes clinical immersion and customer discovery, conversion of user needs to design inputs, concept ideation, patent analysis, prototyping, and engineering analysis (Fig. 1). Projects are often advised by clinical and industry experts, and topics tend to be geared towards high-tech devices to address US healthcare needs. Henceforth, the one-semester, US-focused Capstone is referred to as ‘‘traditional Capstone.’’ In 2018, we founded a sister program to traditional Capstone, Global Health Capstone (GHC), which focuses on addressing clinical needs in resource-limited settings. Excellent programs in global health device design exist at other universities, including Clemson University, Johns Hopkins, Rice University, and University of Michigan.4–6,9,12 Whereas traditional Capstone focuses on development of first-generation prototypes to prove early feasibility, GHC is a multisemester experience focused on developing high fidelity prototypes positioned for clinical studies. GHC solutions must be robust, inexpensive, and locally sustainable. Current projects aim to address high infant and maternal mortality rates in Ethiopia.11 Since program inception, GHC has expanded to include students
across majors, academic years, and universities to create a collaborative, interdisciplinary program. COVID-19 brings several challenges to maintaining the academic requirements and rigor of traditional Capstone (Fig. 1). The traditional Capstone model requires substantial in-person interactions with clinicians, access to medical facilities, and use of specialty equipment for prototyping. Prior to COVID-19, we experienced some similar challenges in our first attempt at international collaboration through GHC. Although GHC teams had the opportunity to travel to the host country, in-person clinical immersion was limited to one week prior to the start of the academic year, not all students were able to travel, and conversations with clinical advisers became more limited after returning to the US. In-country immersion also included visits to local markets and engineering workshops within the hospital to assess available resources for device man
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