Engineers in Hospital: An Immersive and Multidisciplinary Pedagogical Approach for Better Solutions

摘要

The Faculty of Engineering (FoE) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) recently launched the country's first Engineering in Medicine (EIM) program co-taught by medical professionals and engineering educators. Engineering students in this program gain a deeper understanding of rehabilitation medicine via immersive training in hospitals and first-hand interactions with patients, and their doctors and therapists. The experience enables students to appreciate the complexity of treatments and challenges faced by the patients and clinicians. As part of the EIM program, students learn to apply their insights and adopt a user-centric approach to design solutions to meet the needs of patients and clinicians. We also expect the direct contact with patients and their caregivers to engender in the students a greater sense of ownership for their projects, and motivation to produce practical and affordable solutions. This paper describes the motivation for launching this EIM program, and lessons learned in the early phase of the program.