News and Media

WCM-Q Grand Rounds explores integration of engineering and medical education

Dr. Roderic I. Pettigrew spoke at WCM-Q Grand Rounds about the convergence of engineering and medicine.
Dr. Roderic I. Pettigrew spoke at WCM-Q Grand Rounds about the convergence of engineering and medicine.

The potential for engineering and medical education to be integrated to drive innovation and improve healthcare outcomes was discussed at the latest edition of WCM-Q’s Grand Rounds lecture series.

Visiting expert Dr. Roderic I. Pettigrew, executive dean of the engineering and medicine program at Texas A&M University and Houston Methodist Hospital, is one of the world’s foremost pioneers of ‘EnMed’, a new discipline that combines the teaching of engineering and medicine to produce physicians with the skills to design and build medical devices to solve the health problems they encounter in the clinic.

At Texas A&M in the US, Dr. Pettigrew has been instrumental in the establishment of a partnership between the College of Engineering, the College of Medicine and Houston Methodist Hospital, which together provide the training for the new EnMed program.

Speaking at WCM-Q to an audience of physicians, pharmacists, nurses and allied health professionals, Dr. Pettigrew said: “EnMed is an innovative engineering medical school that simultaneously offers an MD degree and an engineering master’s in a four-year program that purposefully educates engineering-grounded physicians – or ‘physicianeers’ – and purposefully trains them to invent transformational technology for healthcare that can be utilized in the clinical arena. This could be anything from developing robotics to engineering at the cell and molecular level.”

Dr. Pettigrew then gave several examples to illustrate how technological innovation serves as the engine for scientific progress in healthcare, helping physicians and scientists discover new knowledge about disease and to turn those discoveries into improved healthcare through invention. Examples included the use of electrical deep brain stimulation to successfully treat chronic depression, using augmented or mixed reality computer technology to allow a surgeon to ‘see’ beneath the skin of a patient and more accurately make an incision to remove a tumor, and using electrical stimulation of the spinal cord to allow a patient to move his paralyzed legs and stand up.

Dr. Javaid I. Sheikh, dean of WCM-Q, said: “Dr. Pettigrew’s vision for the future of healthcare through the convergence of engineering and medicine to produce problem-solving ‘physicianeers’ is a truly visionary leap of the imagination, but also a tremendously practical and logical solution for bridging the gap between two scientific spheres.”

Dr. Pettigrew added: “I appreciate having the opportunity to share with you my vision and my excitement about the opportunity we have to really transform healthcare for the planet and to make a huge difference in the wellbeing of all of us through the convergence of engineering and medicine.”

The lecture, titled Engineering Healthcare to Transform Medicine, was accredited locally by the Qatar Council for Healthcare Practitioners-Accreditation Department (QCHP-AD) and internationally by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME).