Biomedical Engineering Key Content Survey - Results from Round One of a Delphi Study

1. Biomedical Engineering Key Content Survey - Results from Round One of a Delphi Study David W. Gatchell and Robert A. Linsenmeier VaNTH ERC for Bioengineering Educational Technologies and Northwestern University Whitaker Foundation Biomedical Engineering Educational Summit March, 2005 Supported by NSF EEC 9876363

2. Why conduct a BME key content survey? Motivation and potential benefits • Motivation • Establish an identityfor undergraduate Biomedical Engineers • Improve communication between academic BME programs and industry • Academia – Inform industry of the knowledge, skills and training of BMEs • Industry – Inform academia of the knowledge, skills and training expected • Benefits • More industrial positions for BMEs • Each graduate does not have to explain curriculum • Recognition that BME degree is ideal preparation for at least some industrial positions.

3. Delphi study - Overview • In General: • An iterative process for collecting knowledge from, and disseminating results to, a group of experts • Four steps (repeat steps #2 and #3 to attempt to reach consensus) • Develop a set of questions on a topic. • Experts give opinions on topics; suggest new ideas that were missed • Explore and evaluate inconsistencies uncovered in step 2 • Disseminate findings, or revise questions and go back to 2 • Key point is that experts remain anonymous • Our Study: A set of three surveys • Round 0: Select concepts from VaNTH taxonomies; reviewed by domain experts • Round 1: Survey BME industrial representatives and faculty. Asked participants to rate relevance of concepts important for ALL undergrads in BME, and make suggestions of concepts missed • Round 2: Refine and update list of concepts and resubmit to the above groups for further evaluation • Round 3: Question proficiencies expected (e.g., using Bloom’s Taxonomy)

4. Overview of the key content survey, round one • Utilized an online survey tool to query ~274 concepts: • Eleven bioengineering domains (including design) • Physiology, cellular biology, molecular biology and genetics, biochemistry • Mathematical modeling, statistics, general engineering skills (e.g., computer programming) • Survey divided in two parts, each with half the domains: • Total number of participants, n = 136 • Part one: Academia – 42, Industry – 25 • Part two: Academia – 35, Industry – 23 • Participants were asked to: • Provide demographic information • Employer, Job Title, Responsibilities, Years of Experience • Self-assess level of expertise in each domain (e.g., Biomechanics) • Rate the importance/relevance of each concept to a BME core curriculum • Suggest concepts that had not been included

5. Overview of the key content survey • Concepts rated on 5 point Likert Scale • 1- very unimportant for all BMEs • 5 – very important for all BMEs • Mean ratings across concepts similar for industry and academia • Academia (n=77) mean and SD rating: 3.71 ± 0.52 • Industry (n=48) mean and SD rating: 3.75 ± 0.41 • Domains Investigated: • Bioinformatics, bioinstrumentation, biomaterials, biomechanics, biooptics, biosignals and systems, medical imaging, thermodynamics, transport (fluid, heat, mass) • Cell biology, biochemistry, molecular biology and genetics, physiology • Statistics, general engineering

6. Some concepts included as “Ringers” -Expected to have low rating All except unsteady state mass diffusion equation met expectations

7. Some concepts included in more than one domain to check consistency of response • Two values shown are ratings when concepts are included in different domains • Generally good agreement, but rating sometimes depended on context

8. Results: Highest rated eng’g concepts – Academia Orange concepts are from statistics and general engineering

9. Results: Highest rated eng’g concepts – Industry Orange concepts are from statistics and general engineering

10. Results: lowest rated concepts some from “Ringers”

11. Results: Industry - Academia agreementDistribution of mean ratings of all concepts • Most concepts rated highly. Few ringers in survey. • All traditional domains had some highly rated concepts. • Cutoff level for inclusion in recommended undergrad curriculum still to be determined on basis of further analysis and round two.

12. Results: Industry – Academia AgreementDifferences in means (A-I) Design

13. Results: Discrepancies in design concepts

14. Results: A comparison of general engineering concepts

15. Results: Biology Domains • Good agreement on the whole • All biology areas important, but industry sees molecular biology as being more important than academia • Bioinformatics generally scored low, but industry feels that it is more important than academia does

16. Results: Largest biology discrepancies

17. Results: Physiology (82 concepts) • Very large span within domain • Generally good agreement • Cardiovascular, neural, cellular physiology concepts rated highly • Digestive, renal, parts of endocrine rated low

18. Results: Largest physiology discrepancies between academia and industry

19. Results: Should the following foundational courses be required? Agreement that second semester organic chemistry is not universally required; some uncertainty about one semester

20. Universities represented in round one of the survey Arizona State University* Binghampton University Boston University* Columbia University Devry Institute of Tech Duke University* Florida International University IIT Johns Hopkins University* Marquette University* Milwaukee SOE* MIT NJIT NC State University* Northwestern University* RPI* RHIT Stanford University Syracuse University* • SUNY – Stony Brook • Tulane University* • University of Akron* • University of Cincinnati • University of Illinois – UC* • University of Iowa* • University of Memphis • University of Michigan • University of Minnesota* • University of Pittsburgh* • University of Rochester* • University of Texas – Austin* • University of Toledo* • Vanderbilt University* • VCU* *ABET Accredited – 21 of 37 Accredited Programs Participated

21. Companies and industrial expertise represented in round one of the survey Companies Represented Abbott Laboratories AstraZeneca Baxter Healthcare Boston Scientific Cardiodynamics Cleveland Medical Devices Datasciences, International Dentigenix, Inc. Depuy, a Johnson and Johnson Co. ESTECH Least Invasive Cardiac Surgery GE Healthcare Intel, Corp. Materialise, Inc. Medtronic, Inc. Tyco Healthcare Underwriter Laboratories Areas of Expertise Biomaterials Biomechanics Bioinformatics Bioinstrumentation BioMEMS Biotransport Cellular Biomechanics Computational Modeling Control Systems Engineering Fluid Mechanics Medical Devices Medical Imaging Medical Optics Signal Processing

22. Conclusions • More analysis is required to: • Investigate variation of opinions for individual topics • Correlate ratings with expertise levels • Eliminate contextual bias • Incorporate concepts omitted from first round • BUT, preliminary results have shown that: • “Consistency checks” validate data • Generally good agreement between industry and academia • Industry and academia disagree on a significant number of Design concepts • Industry highly values knowledge of statistics and probability • Core biology should include all domains assessed

23. Conclusions • Remaining issues • Determine level of significance for deciding what concepts can be dropped from core curriculum • Determine significance of differences between industry and academia • Launch second round – by summer • Full matrix of results by concept will be posted on www.vanth.org/curriculum