Addressing challenges of training a new generation of clinician-innovators through an interdisciplinary medical technology design program: Bench-to-Bedside.

Graduate medical education has traditionally focused on training future physicians to be outstanding clinicians with basic and clinical science research skills. This focus has resulted in substantial knowledge gains, but a modest return on investment based on direct improvements in clinical care. In today's shifting healthcare landscape, a number of important challenges must be overcome to not only improve the delivery of healthcare, but to prepare future physicians to think outside the box, focus on and create healthcare innovations, and navigate the complex legal, business and regulatory hurdles of bringing innovation to the bedside. We created an interdisciplinary and experiential medical technology design competition to address these challenges and train medical students interested in moving new and innovative clinical solutions to the forefront of medicine. Medical students were partnered with business, law, design and engineering students to form interdisciplinary teams focused on developing solutions to unmet clinical needs. Over the course of six months teams were provided access to clinical and industry mentors, $500 prototyping funds, development facilities, and non-mandatory didactic lectures in ideation, design, intellectual property, FDA regulatory requirements, prototyping, market analysis, business plan development and capital acquisition. After four years of implementation, the program has supported 396 participants, seen the development of 91 novel medical devices, and launched the formation of 24 new companies. From our perspective, medical education programs that develop innovation training programs and shift incentives from purely traditional basic and clinical science research to also include high-risk innovation will see increased student engagement in improving healthcare delivery and an increase in the quality and quantity of innovative solutions to medical problems being brought to market.

Patient-empowerment interactive technologies.

Video games capture the rapt attention of an individual player's mind and body, providing new opportunities for personalized health care. An example of therapeutic interactive technologies is an incentive-based video game that translates physical exercise into mental empowerment via motivational metaphoric visualization in order to help patients psychologically overcome cancer. Such nonpharmacological interventions may enhance patients' resilience toward various chronic disorders via neuronal mechanisms that activate positive emotions and the reward system.