Engineers in Hospital: An Immersive and Multidisciplinary Pedagogical Approach for Better Solutions

The Faculty of Engineering (FoE) at the National Un iversity of Singapore (NUS) and the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the Singap ore General Hospital (SGH) recently launched the country's first Engineering in Medicin e (EIM) program co-taught by medical professionals and engineering educators. Engineeri g students in this program gain a deeper understanding of rehabilitation medicine via immers ive training in hospitals and first-hand interactions with patients, and their doctors and t herapists. The experience enables students to appreciate the complexity of treatments and challen ges faced by the patients and clinicians. As part of the EIM program, students learn to apply th eir insights and adopt a user-centric approach to design solutions to meet the needs of patients a nd clinicians. We also expect the direct contact with patients and their caregivers to engender in t he students a greater sense of ownership for their projects, and motivation to produce practical and affordable solutions. This paper describes the motivation for launching this EIM program, and lessons learned in the early phase of the program.