Work in Progress: Development of Virtual Reality Platform for Unmet Clinical Needs Finding in Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Design Programs

Christine King; Dalton Salvo; Jasmine Wang; Sriram Rao; Rahul Sreedasyam; Abhishek Kulkarni; Shaan Braich; Ishaan Sharma

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: Biomedical Engineering Division: Best of Works in Progress
Page Count: 8
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41142
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41142
Download Count: 389

Paper Authors

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Christine King University of California, Irvine

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Dr. Christine King is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Biomedical Engineering at UC Irvine. She received her BS and MS from Manhattan College in Mechanical Engineering and her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from UC Irvine, where she developed brain-computer interface systems for neurorehabilitation. She was a post-doctorate in the Wireless Health Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a research manager in the Center for SMART Health, where she focused on wireless health monitoring for stroke and pediatric asthma. Her current research is on engineering education and women's health, specializing in pedagogy strategies to promote learning and innovation in design-build-test courses, including senior design, computer programming, and computer-aided-design courses, as well as pre-partum and partum medical devices.

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Jasmine Wang University of California, Irvine

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Sriram Rao University of California, Irvine

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Currently a third-year medical student at the University of California, Irvine. Alumna of University of California, Los Angeles Bioengineering.

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Abstract

In the era of post-COVID19, access for non-essential personnel to shadow physicians in hospitals has become increasingly difficult; combined with rapidly increasing biomedical engineering class sizes across the country, opportunities for undergraduate students to experience critically formative clinical immersion is scarce if not impossible. In order to remain competitive in the medical device landscape, biomedical engineering undergraduate students must be adequately trained to identify and unpack clinical needs through observation and experience. However, this task has become more difficult given the challenges remote learning presents to unmet clinical needs finding. Hence, there is a clear need to develop technological solutions to not only satisfy such educational demands, but also enhance the student experience by developing a more robust and effective remote learning apparatus.

To address medical center accessibility issues, the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at the University of California Irvine (UCI) are initiating a virtual reality (VR) clinical immersion program for undergraduate BME juniors prior to taking their senior capstone design course. Our laboratory has developed VR immersive clinical environments, physician interviews, and in class reverse engineering learning modules to give all students the opportunity to learn how to find and screen unmet clinical needs in the medical field of their interest in a hybrid course format. In collaboration with UCI School of Medicine and Medical Center, we have developed several virtual reality environments for the following procedures: colon and rectal surgeries, neurophysiological procedures, physical therapy and rehabilitation, urology, ophthalmology, plastic surgeries, cardiovascular surgeries, transplant surgeries, and orthopedic surgeries. Furthermore, we have also developed physician training immersive clinical environments for various hospital coding procedures through filming of simulation procedures during medical student training at the UCI Medical Education Simulation Center. This center provides a full-scale operating room, emergency room trauma bay, and a critical care unit; and, it is equipped with a real-time simulation dummy that can mimic real-world use cases seen in the emergency room.

Employing a head-mounted camera (Sony FDR x-3000) worn by the primary physician and two 180-degree cameras (Insta360 Evo), we have combined the two recordings to create immersive virtual tours of these procedures consisting of a 360-degree panoramic view of the environment with a visualization of the physician’s first-person perspective. By hosting our videos on YouTube and our interactive experiences on own website, all our students will be able to access the content through any computer, tablet, smartphone, or VR device that has access to a web browser. Additionally, students will be able to check out Oculus Quests and Google Cardboard headsets from our Science Library.

Citation
Format

King, C., & Wang, J., & Rao, S., & Sreedasyam, R., & Kulkarni, A., & Braich, S., & Sharma, I., & Salvo, D. (2022, August), Work in Progress: Development of Virtual Reality Platform for Unmet Clinical Needs Finding in Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Design Programs Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41142

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - In the era of post-COVID19, access for non-essential personnel to shadow physicians in hospitals has become increasingly difficult; combined with rapidly increasing biomedical engineering class sizes across the country, opportunities for undergraduate students to experience critically formative clinical immersion is scarce if not impossible. In order to remain competitive in the medical device landscape, biomedical engineering undergraduate students must be adequately trained to identify and unpack clinical needs through observation and experience. However, this task has become more difficult given the challenges remote learning presents to unmet clinical needs finding. Hence, there is a clear need to develop technological solutions to not only satisfy such educational demands, but also enhance the student experience by developing a more robust and effective remote learning apparatus.

To address medical center accessibility issues, the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at the University of California Irvine (UCI) are initiating a virtual reality (VR) clinical immersion program for undergraduate BME juniors prior to taking their senior capstone design course. Our laboratory has developed VR immersive clinical environments, physician interviews, and in class reverse engineering learning modules to give all students the opportunity to learn how to find and screen unmet clinical needs in the medical field of their interest in a hybrid course format. In collaboration with UCI School of Medicine and Medical Center, we have developed several virtual reality environments for the following procedures: colon and rectal surgeries, neurophysiological procedures, physical therapy and rehabilitation, urology, ophthalmology, plastic surgeries, cardiovascular surgeries, transplant surgeries, and orthopedic surgeries. Furthermore, we have also developed physician training immersive clinical environments for various hospital coding procedures through filming of simulation procedures during medical student training at the UCI Medical Education Simulation Center. This center provides a full-scale operating room, emergency room trauma bay, and a critical care unit; and, it is equipped with a real-time simulation dummy that can mimic real-world use cases seen in the emergency room.

Employing a head-mounted camera (Sony FDR x-3000) worn by the primary physician and two 180-degree cameras (Insta360 Evo), we have combined the two recordings to create immersive virtual tours of these procedures consisting of a 360-degree panoramic view of the environment with a visualization of the physician’s first-person perspective. By hosting our videos on YouTube and our interactive experiences on own website, all our students will be able to access the content through any computer, tablet, smartphone, or VR device that has access to a web browser. Additionally, students will be able to check out Oculus Quests and Google Cardboard headsets from our Science Library.
AU  - Christine King
AU  - Jasmine Wang
AU  - Sriram Rao
AU  - Rahul Sreedasyam
AU  - Abhishek Kulkarni
AU  - Shaan Braich
AU  - Ishaan Sharma
AU  - Dalton Salvo
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Work in Progress: Development of Virtual Reality Platform for Unmet Clinical Needs Finding in Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Design Programs
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/41142
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--41142
ER  -