Welcome from the Clincal Director
Welcome to the Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design. As the new clinical director, I'm proud to continue the work done by Dr. Jay Khanna, CBID's first clinical director, who was instrumental in introducing CBID to clinicians and faculty at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and School of Medicine. I look forward to continuing to build ties throughout the institution as we work with students to improve healthcare with their innovative device designs.
The concept behind CBID is that the best opportunities for innovation in healthcare occur at the intersection of multiple disciplines. For clinicians, it is challenging to innovate in healthcare because they are often ingrained in their own methods of diagnosing and treating diseases; the result of years of training and practice in their specialties. In contrast, engineering students can bring a fresh approach to solving clinical problems, not having been "burdened" by a traditional medical education and constrained by the limits of the current standard of care. We find at Hopkins blending these two groups leads to incredible opportunities for innovation: The clinician identifies unmet clinical needs and problems and the students work to analyze the problems and design solutions.
For the past several years I have worked with CBID graduate students during summer rotations in Radiology as well as acting as a clinical advisor on several medical device projects. I have seen for myself how well this process works and the innovative medical devices that can result from such a partnership. The students are truly impressive. One of the projects on which I am a clinical advisor, Hemova, is now in the start-up stage and is proceeding with development, design, and testing.
If you like working with bright, passionate and dedicated students, I would highly recommend this program. We welcome clinicians, fellows, residents, nurses or any other Johns Hopkins School of Medicine staff or students. Please contact us if you would like more information on the program or how you can work with CBID graduate or undergraduate students.
Sincerely,
Clifford R. Weiss, MD
Clinical Director, Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design
Assistant Professor, Department of Radiology
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine