How to get involved with the technological side of medicine?

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SchroedingrsCat

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Say you'd like to develop new medical technologies alongside engineers in the future... perhaps start your own business with these technologies. What kind of steps do you need to take starting in med school to get to this point?

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I'd say the first thing to do is find a field that you enjoy and pursue it. One has to know the field to understand the current technological limitations that need improvement. When I was a biomedical engineer physicians would approach a faculty member involved in the specific area (usually they were already collaborating) and say, "You know, it would really help if we could do X in patients with Y disease."

The second would be to maintain ties to academia and buddy up with the engineering department.

Just my $0.02 from an engineering background (BS/MS).
 
I'd say the first thing to do is find a field that you enjoy and pursue it. One has to know the field to understand the current technological limitations that need improvement. When I was a biomedical engineer physicians would approach a faculty member involved in the specific area (usually they were already collaborating) and say, "You know, it would really help if we could do X in patients with Y disease."

The second would be to maintain ties to academia and buddy up with the engineering department.

Just my $0.02 from an engineering background (BS/MS).

This is exactly right (finishing MS now in EE). If you don't have a technical background the best you can do is find what you enjoy clinically and it will be obvious the problems that need worked on. Once you become the clinical expert you can seek out an engineering faculty. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "We need your guys' technical expertise with this" from physicians. And it's always of this same form, i.e. "I'd like to do X in patients with Y disease"
 
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This is a great question. These days biomedical engineering is huge and I really regret not having gotten a background in engineering and/or comp sci while I was in college so I could do some research in some capacity. I don't believe you'll be able to do much high-tech research during med school unless you take a year or more off. Most students only have a couple months in between 1st and 2nd yr to do research. Some residency programs allow you to a take a full year to do research, these are more common in surgical specialties such as neurosurgery, ortho, or gen surg - fields where you may expect to see these technologies used. After residency, you can pursue whatever course you want.
 
I've been a little curious about this myself. I'm an entering MS1 this fall and have a BSEE and 10 years experience doing embedded software for consumer electronics (a small amount of time at a medical device company). I'm curious what kind of research opportunities might be available for someone like myself? I know what it's like to be on the engineering side of these kinds of projects, but not sure what kind of involvement I'll get to have on the MD side. Have you guys been able to get involved with technology related research (medical devices or other) and if so, what kinds of things are you doing?

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The possibilities are endless for you. Go talk to faculty. You should be able to find those with appointments both in medicine and BME/EE. Developing apps to help solve specific problems is an obvious start but as you gain more medical/clinical knowledge the world of medical devices will open. Then, you either find an industry partner that has the resources to develop the hardware you need or find a university partner. In my experience physicians interacting with engineers is currently suboptimal because they speak such different languages. Someone like yourself could initially bridge this gap then become independent and thus, more efficient. I know of physicians who hold patents on medical devices that are experts 'users' of these devices, but don't know much of anything as to how they work. The sky's the limit to someone with both.
 
What steps do you need?

Step 1: Have an idea
Step 2: Acquire $ / get investor funding

The rest will be pretty self explanatory
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5sxLapAts[/YOUTUBE]
 
Mobile health and med tech is getting huge--I'd look around at some of the various sites on the topic and see if there's a particular area that interests you. iMedicalApps.com is great resource. If you're active on social media, I'd also connect with some like-minded people and physicians on Twitter. If faculty at your institution have an interest in this, I'd connect with them as well. Good luck!
 
How relevant is the know-how of programming to a physician, particularly if he is interested in developing new medical technology? If it is at all relevant, how does it play a role and what programming languages are most useful?
 
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