One way APDC can assist you in your device development, is to introduce you to Georgia Tech’s BME Capstone Senior Design Course. Students are partnered with health care providers and industry to develop solutions to unmet clinical needs. If you are a clinician with a clinical or surgical problem to be solved, or if you have a pediatric medical device idea for which you’d like to get some help, you may be able to work with a team of senior BME students in developing and testing a potential solution. Previous advisors have found working with a student team very rewarding in learning about the phases of: design research; generation of engineering alternatives; prototyping and testing; and the FDA 510(k) regulatory pathway for medical device clearance.
Examples of past projects include:
- Intergraded surgical patient monitoring device to reduce "cable clutter"
- Wearable personal activity device for predictive healthcare
- Arteriovenous fistula (AVF) improvement for hemodialysis access
- Defibrillator designed for small animals used in clinical investigative studies
- Safety device for central venous line insertion
In exchange for having a team of students work on your particular problem, you are asked to provide about 10-12 hours of your time during a semester on the following:
- 4-5 meetings a semester with your project team
- Provide feedback on project deliverables and team reports
- End of semester assessment of team's performance
- If possible, attend the end of semester project presentation
BME Capstone is currently accepting ideas for the Spring 2015 semester. If you have identified an unmet clinical need or have a device idea that you would like a team of students to work on, visit their website and submit a project idea. You will be asked to provide 2-3 paragraphs describing the problem that needs to be solved and its importance.
