Face-to-Face

All I could say was, Wow! He’s right. Here I am trying to refine my skills to perfect the motion using an instrument that may not be the perfect instrument for what we’re doing. And, instead of practicing my longtime technique to make the tools I have work best for my patient, I now have a new tool that works best for me and makes the procedure easier on my patient. The more time I spend with these students in the EnMed Program—one of only a handful like it in the country—the more I realize this is a hidden gem that can open so many different doors for us to study diseases in ways we never thought possible. Our ideas can become actual prototypes and sometimes right there on the spot. Involving engineers with today’s medicine makes even longtimers like me think differently because, in addition to the regular pathophysiology of disease questions we get from medical students, we also get questions of ergonomics—how to do things in more efficient ways. EnMed learners are always looking at processes and workflow. The beauty of our partnership is the EnMed students also want to engage with us, the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, because of our vibrant research program with our research fellows and research coordinator. We have unique situations that they want to observe and consider. Founded in 2019 as a collaboration between Texas A&M’s School of Engineering Medicine and top-ranked Houston Methodist, EnMed just graduated its first class of students with both medical doctorate and Master of Engineering degrees. Cleverly called “physicianeers,” these graduates are problem-solving professionals who are trained to take on some of today’s greatest challenges in medicine and research. Anytime we have a research meeting for our department, there are three or four EnMed students present who contribute so much to our research. Their unique training allows us to take an unmet clinical need from idea to implementation through the biodesign process. The $500 million EnMed Tower, located in the heart of the Texas Medical Center at Holcombe Boulevard and Main Street, has a complete machine shop, tissue culture labs, electronic design and fabrication shop, virtual reality and simulation and 3D printing. As for Houston Methodist, we offer our unique Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation and Education (MITIE^SM) to test out prototypes in our virtual hospital and hands-on clinical training facility. It’s really a perfect reciprocal relationship we have with both institutions benefiting from the other’s state-of-the-art technology, innovation and the draw of excellent students and faculty to our program. Some of the specific programs of interest for the students include advanced interventional technologies like robotics, lasers, genome editing, and artificial intelligence. They may focus on regenerative engineering-medicine with biomaterials, nano materials and tissue engineering. Students also can specialize in imaging and diagnostics, predictive analytics, innovative therapeutics.

In this age of exploding technology and information overload, even in the hopeful world of research and medical advances, it is easy to become jaded. We’ve seen it all; we’ve certainly read it all, and you will be hard pressed to surprise us. Now comes the EnMed program at Texas A&M in partnership with Houston Methodist researchers, and I am both surprised and excited. I’m amazed, truly amazed.