BME 716, Clinical Summer
Immersion
BME Student
Summer Immersion in Weill Cornell Medical Center Each summer, PhD students,
after their first year of classroom and laboratory study, come to Weill
Medical College of Cornell University and its affiliated New York
Presbyterian Hospital - Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City for a
clinical immersion experience. This summer immersion program is supported by
a training grant from NIBIB (T35EB006732). The summer immersion course (Directors: Prof. Yi Wang,
Drs. William Frayer and Martin Prince) is set up so
that each student is paired with a clinician mentor, who serves as a gateway
into a specific clinical arena. Staying true to the vision of Cornell University’s
BME department, which is to develop a quantitative understanding of the human
body across scales – the program aims to deepen each student’s understanding
of the body as an integrated system by further providing a perspective from a
clinical standpoint. The participating BME students were treated in a similar
way as medical students with the privilege of observing patient consultation,
diagnostic procedures, treatment planning, and surgical operation. This
allowed them to interact effectively with a team of clinicians, learn about
the human body during disease in a systematic manner, understand rationales
behind patient diagnosis and therapy, and observe the role of technology from
a comprehensive perspective. The summer immersion course also allows the students to
participate in clinical studies under the direction of their mentor
clinicians – often solving a true clinical problem by applying engineering
principles. The students this year have completed vast variety of projects
this year, ranging from data processing and analysis of a neurosurgical
database to the design of a prototype image processing software for accurate
measurement of blood vessel parameters from clinical images. This experience
can serve a guiding light for a career in biomedical engineering and an
inspiration for developing new medical technology. The program directors are
truly grateful to the invaluable efforts from all clinician mentors from
various departments including: Medicine/Cardiology, Neurological Surgery, Oncology,
Ophthalmology, Pediatrics, Radiology, Surgery, and Urology. The students have
quality experience largely due to their substantial contribution to the
program. Throughout the summer immersion students were asked to
share their experiences with the group through a blog setup specifically for
the immersion. The student blog is a great way for students to document their
experience with text and photos and to share it with a larger audience. A
student in a prior year program wrote upon conclusion of the program: “I
absolutely loved my experience this summer. There was so much I learned about
medicine, surgery, health care, how engineers fit into health care, human
dynamics, myself, etc., etc… not to mention, being able to enjoy New York
City in the summertime.” The web address for this year’s blog is here. The
students will return to Ithaca campus in August. They will summarize their
summer immersion experience in term papers and also make an oral presentation
to the BME department in the first week of fall semester. We are all looking
forward to seeing their final presentations! |