Integrating Multi-Professional Principles and Practices into the Medical Education Curriculum

Purpose: Due to the advances in healthcare technology, it has become increasingly obvious that engineering is becoming more integral to the process of providing care to people. For engineering and medical students to be able to take electives related to healthcare technology within an interdisciplinary context, the engineering and medical programs must work closely together. Through the implementation of these innovative projects, the students are exposed to new ways of co-designing and interacting with each other. Methods: Medical students were required to collaborate with engineers, architects, and artists as part of a program that was offered to them to create new assistive medical devices. It was asked of participants during the ideation phase of their project to complete a questionnaire in order to assess compassion satisfaction and burnout metrics. Results: On average, the combined compassion satisfaction score was high for both medical students (42/50) and non-medical students (43/50). In terms of burnout, 77% of medical students and 81% of non-medical students reported low burnout; the average burnout score for medical students was 19/50, and for non-medical students 17/50. Only one statement produced a statistically significant difference between groups. For the statement, “I am a caring person,” only 31% of medical students self-described as being a very caring person ‘very often’ as opposed to 62% of non-medical students. Conclusion: A critical component of this innovative curriculum was determining whether students had a high degree of compassion satisfaction and if they were at risk of burnout as a result of it. The service-learning experience through prototyping allowed students to bridge the gap between science and practice in health care, which in turn contributed to student development, pride, and well-being.