Author: leahmichetti
The Final Design- Sharing Journeys Via Video
When I first heard that we had to make a video for the final presentation I was a little worried since it takes a lot of time to plan and film, and even more time to edit, but I was also kind of relieved since that meant no pressure on presentation day. After completing the video and getting to watch everyone else’s video today, it was clear that all of the work put into these videos was well worth it. We were able to share so much of our stories and in a much more effective way than if we’d used a more traditional presentation style for our final project. It’s kind of amazing how this choice of media allowed us to show half a semester’s worth of work in just 5 minutes, and really get creative with it, showing drawings and arrows and explaining each step in our deign process and each iteration of our prototypes.
What fascinated me about making the video, as well as watching the videos today, is how much of a design process this was in itself. Similarly to many other projects in the course, it was only fitting that the instructions for the video were vague– to explain your process/story. These vague directions gave us the freedom to, for one last time in the course, design. It was interesting to me to see how different the video styles were across the groups. While there were some similarities in showing interviews, sped up prototyping, video clips, or white board drawings, it was fascinating how each group incorporated these techniques into and designed their video in a unique way that best shared their story. While making these creative decisions about how to present our story was another design challenge, it really made us reflect on all the work we’d done throughout the semester to get us to the point we are today, and think about how each piece of our story connected. I think the video project was an extremely effective way of sharing as much of our stories as possible, and I’m excited that next year’s class will get some formal training in this area and get to experience this reflective final design process in the course.
3D Printing- A Frustrating But Rewarding Learning Experience
Clinical Project: Nasal Cannula Redesign
As time consuming as CAD can be, I was excited that we would end up not only designing a new cannula interface, but also that we would have the opportunity to 3D print prototype(s). I’ve never 3D printed anything before, so I had all these expectations as well as a fundamental misunderstanding of the quality of the end result. Going into this project I kinda thought that you draw a beautiful model in CAD, send it to the printer, and a few hours later you have your design in physical form…
While this is somewhat true, I had no idea that the printers can be so finicky. I also didn’t realize how much the orientation of the model matters when printing. For example, the second prototype we tried to print, the orientation was such that the cannula prongs wouldn’t print because supports weren’t properly placed— and that’s another thing, I didn’t know supports even existed (Anita’s 3-D printing workshop probably would’ve helped with these things…). There was also the whole process of getting the supports out, and I didn’t realize how difficult that can be when using such a flexible material like NinjaFlex.
Through the iterative process- tweaking thicknesses and orientation and eventually making dramatic changes to scaling- and many trips to the Scholars Lab, we were finally able to 3D print our design. With all the frustrations experienced in the process, from CADing to 3D printing, it was so rewarding to be able to physically hold and play with a design we’d formerly only had on paper.
Observation–> Identified Need—————–> Solution; Watching it happen in the real world.
One of the most memorable observations while shadowing in the GI clinic wasn’t something observed while Dr. Middleton was with a patient, or even something he said at all, but rather something that was said while walking from the patients room, through a tiny hallway, back to Dr. Middleton’s office. In this tiny hallway, there was a row of desks and computers, and other doctors and nurses were working or talking. While walking past these doctors, one spoke to Dr. Middleton and was talking about how she had to perform a lumbar puncture shortly and how she really hated doing so and that she always got very nervous performing the procedure because they had no guidance since they don’t typically have access to ultrasound in this particular clinic.
When we got back to Dr. Middleton’s office, I asked him more about the procedure and her concerns, and he told me how lumbar punctures involve essentially jamming a large needle into the back of a patient, and typically without any guidance as to where the needle should be placed. He mentioned that there are some ultrasound or fluorescence techniques to help guide the needle, but they usually just blindly stick the needle in the back. This is especially true with larger (particularly obese) patients, and it is both challenging and nerve-racking for doctors.
This particular observation made such an impression on me because it was so genuine and unprompted. The doctor who expressed her worries about the procedure had no idea who I was or why I was shadowing and this observation suggested a clear problem/need area that I wasn’t seeking out– I wasn’t fishing for the need and she wasn’t trying to tell me there was a problem, it was just so real.
This need area fascinated me (and still does!!), so you can imagine how excited I was when we had 2 UVA alum come in to speak to us about their device, Accuro, which is designed to guide the needle for epidurals. Although they designed the device with epidurals in mind, it is versatile enough to be used in other procedures such as lumbar punctures. It was amazing to see how they were able to integrate ultrasound with the 3D image of the spinal anatomy on screen so that doctors no longer have to perform these procedures “blind.” It was such an exciting experience for me to observe this need in such a genuine way in the clinic and later not only see how someone has designed a solution, but also get to talk to them about their design and how it could be used for broader applications. Super nerdy I know, but it was one of those situations where I was so intrigued by the whole design process, from observation –> need ———> solutions, and truly excited about the positive impact that design can have on the care of patients.
Decisions Made
For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be a doctor– well that’s the first dream job I can remember that was realistic (the very first dream job I remember having was as an actress actually, which probably surprises you, and even surprises me, as I’m often pretty quiet). Studying biomedical engineering, however, kinda tugged at the stability of my dream of being a doctor. During the past 2 years, every so often I would wonder if I actually wanted to have a job in the BME field instead, maybe even on a design team or as some kind of consultant. Through my time in BME and especially in Advanced Design, I’ve really learned to appreciate the design process, and the small intricacies and subtle details that go into design. Because I’ve developed a strong understanding of the design process through this course, hearing the guest speakers talk about their work in design and consulting has made me really admire what these people are doing, however it’s also made me realize that it’s not really something I would want to do as a career. I think that the nitty-gritty business and marketing side (which you really have to consider heavily when you’re participating in product design and development in the real world), may be largely responsible for this . I feel that I would get frustrated working on projects for so long and dealing with all the business and policies and patents, it’s just a lot. Hearing about these guest speakers’ experiences has been extremely interesting, but also very beneficial for me personally, as they have helped me realize that med school really is the direction I want to be headed after graduating from undergrad, and I feel even more confident about that now than ever.
PHP: Learning from 2 Perspectives
During the interview phase of the PHP, Emmelyn expressed that she wanted to get on a more consistent eating schedule, since last semester she sometimes missed both breakfast and lunch because of her busy class schedule, and then had to have a large dinner to fill her up. Emmelyn wanted to stop running into this issue and eat meals throughout the day to keep her full and alert in class. To collect daily data, Emmelyn wrote down everything she ate as well as what time she ate it. I then took this information and logged the number of meals she had eaten that day, and also calculated the percentage of each food group that she consumed that day. Though Emmelyn’s primary goal was to eat 3 meals a day, she also expressed some interest in eating healthier, so this additional data allowed us to compare her daily food group intake percentages with the recommended values.
From the preliminary data, before intervention, I noticed that this semester her schedule allows her to eat lunch, but she still rarely eats breakfast. Because we wanted to plan an intervention that would be easy to follow and that would not add a lot of time to her busy schedule, I had her try taking a piece of fruit from the dining hall at dinner so that she could save it and eat it in the morning, possibly even on her way to class to save time. Emmelyn felt that the fruit intervention helped, but only when she remembered to grab it from the dining hall and eat it in the morning. She thinks that an intervention like this could work long-term if she got into the habit of grabbing food the night before and putting it in her backpack so she wouldn’t forget to eat it. Also, Emmelyn expressed that it would be more helpful to grab cereal or yogurt instead, since a piece of fruit isn’t the most filling breakfast.
Emmelyn also noticed that writing down everything she was eating made her more conscious of her diet and in the beginning it encouraged her to make healthier decisions. However, as time went on, other situational and environmental factors (ex. candy at IDEAS report meetings) were more influential and she was less concerned with eating healthy. Emmelyn also commented on how the calculated food group percentages seemed skewed and that she felt they didn’t accurately represent the relative proportions she was eating. We think that some of this is attributed to the small portions at Newcomb and also the fact that she doesn’t always eat all of the food she puts on her plate. Turning her food log into food group percentages was something I also struggled with, as I found it difficult to determine what counted as, for example, 1 serving of fruit or meat, and make these percentages relevant to portion size. I learned that although it seemed that it would be insightful to break down the original data into additional data, doing so can sometimes result in inaccuracies when there isn’t a hard line for classification.
About halfway through this process, we also started tracking Emmelyn’s alertness in class to see if eating breakfast and lunch helped keep her more focused in class. From the data, it seemed to me that eating three meals on a given day didn’t necessarily help her focus in class; it seemed that her alertness was moreso related to other factors such as teaching styles. Interestingly, Emmelyn noticed that eating food during class helped her stay focused because she had something to do in addition to listening to the lecture. Although she noticed this, Emmelyn thinks that the class alertness data was impacted largely by the fact that she was sick during the week we collected the data.
When Emmelyn and I talked about the data and reflected on this first round of the PHP, we found it interesting to listen to each other’s explanations and interpretations of the data. Discussing some of the flaws and confounding variables affecting the data helped fill in the gaps and better understand the data collected throughout the process.
Leah- First Entry
Hi my name is Leah Michetti and like many biomedical engineering majors, I’m on the pre-med track. For 16 years, gymnastics was one of the most important things in my life, and during this time I had my fair share of injuries (ankles, knees, back, and wrists) and took many trips to see the orthopedist. My personal experience as a gymnast and my familiarity with the orthopedic specialty has led me to consider pursuing orthopedic surgery, however, it’s possible that experiences gained from this class could make me reconsider this plan.
I’m really excited that this class exposes us to a variety of clinical settings and that it challenges us to identify needs that we think are important. I feel that this class provides a unique, real world experience that can result in meaningful solutions that improve pediatric healthcare. By the end of the course, I hope to develop a design or prototype that will do just that, and potentially have an idea that will jumpstart a Capstone project.
BME Design 