One of the most memorable parts of my college experience was the Biomedical Engineering Design Teams program, where I worked in a team of college students to design and test out solutions to a problem in medicine under the guidance of professors from the schools of engineering and medicine. I was a part of three different design teams during college. My first design team worked on designing a flexible arthroscope (a camera to see inside your joints) for orthopedic surgeons to help them see in the back of the knee joint. My second design team worked on designing a more controllable and precise shave biopsy device for dermatologists trying to diagnose skin cancer. I was the leader of my third design team, and we worked on developing a generative-AI-based translator for patients still learning English to help explain their medication instructions.
An important part of engineering design that often gets overlooked is considering how people will use your solution and whether it will actually be adopted. A solution can work well in the lab, but might not be easy to use in real life. Similarly, a solution might work in the lab, but get in the way of other things happening in the hospital. When designing a solution to a problem, another important question to ask yourself is why is this problem happening in the first place? You need to understand the people who are impacted by the problem in order to design an effective solution that is more likely to actually be used.
