Fresh eyes and new perspectives: why PhD students are key to medical innovation
Have you ever wondered why new technology is created every day, while medicine is left behind? Recently I realised that PhD students are perfectly placed to bridge the gap between healthcare and tech, and I can tell you why.
As a clinical neuroscience PhD student in the final stretch of my 3.5-year degree, I’ve spent hours working in cutting-edge labs and hours watching patients being operated on in busy surgical theatres. I’ve also spent hours attending hospital appointments and hours waiting with patients in bland, windowless rooms.
Over the past few years, I would often alternate between awe at the futuristic technology used and then frustration at the archaic bureaucratic procedures. These disparate perspectives are what inspired me to write this blog.
Don’t get me wrong; the speed at which new technology is changing the face of healthcare is mind-blowing.
Or at least, that’s what it seems like when you hear about hospitals using 3D printing to create replicas of patient organs. Surgeons then practice on lifelike models of their patient’s organs in advance of high-risk, complex procedures. Or Butterfly iQ, a pocket-sized ultrasound scanner that connects to an iPhone app. There’s also a neural-interface wristband being developed that can ‘read your mind’ to control movement, which could help people to control prosthetic limbs or make virtual reality more realistic.
However, these kinds of advances are difficult to comprehend when we’re faced with the shortfalls of our current healthcare system.
Sure, it’s great that we can build a bionic eye, but why does it take multiple phone calls to book a single doctor appointment?
The most frustrating aspect is that often the new technology already exists, and hospitals are in desperate need of it. So why aren’t these great new technologies more broadly adopted?
Integrating new technology into existing infrastructure is far more complicated than one might think. Start-ups and tech companies are famous for innovation. Yet they usually lack the niche knowledge of specific medical fields to accurately predict the pitfalls and requirements needed to make the technology work practically.
New technology must be better than the current ‘gold standard’ available, fit for purpose, or it must perform effectively at a significantly reduced cost. Ideally, it should also be practical for developing countries to adopt.
Medical innovation requires collaboration with individuals from a variety of fields, typically requiring input from healthcare professionals, engineers, technicians, statisticians and project managers, among others. Doctors and nurses rarely have the time to collaborate with entrepreneurial groups, because they’re far too busy doing their actual jobs.
Fortunately, a solution does exist.
Last year I listened to a talk by Professor Prashant Jha on frugal medical innovation. Professor Jha works as a physician, engineer, entrepreneur, inventor and medical editor. He also holds several impressive titles, he’s the Head of Affordable Medical Technologies at King’s College London and has adjunct professorial positions in Australia and Japan. He also founded British Medical Journal Innovations and co-founded the School of International Biodesign in Delhi.
He explained that frugal medical innovation is the process of turning problems into opportunities. It involves creating innovative medical technologies that are cheaper and more effective so that hospitals can redirect their resources back to patient care. Aided by his insight to the industry, he’s created medical devices for everything from monitoring pregnancies, to detecting strokes and diabetes management.
Professor Jha trains PhD students in the field of medical innovation and helps his students to set up ‘medtech’ entrepreneurial companies. He forms teams of students with complementary backgrounds, which allows them to collaborate and create affordable commercial products designed to help patients. His students’ companies have attracted over $10 million in investor funding and employ over 150 people. He said:
“PhD training is often a life-shaping experience. It shapes one’s ability to ask questions and seek answers for problems. In my opinion, an essential bit should be to train doctoral trainees in the art of discovering unmet needs.”
Since listening to his talk, I have been grappling with the question — why aren’t there more opportunities for all PhD students to develop skills in medical innovation?
PhD students working in healthcare settings are perfectly placed to notice and define the everyday issues that they encounter. They would greatly benefit from short training courses or placements with medical innovation or tech companies, which could provide the funding and infrastructure for pilot projects. Placements would also equip students with necessary employment experience, such as project management, budgeting, cost-benefit analyses, pitching to clients and stakeholders, as well as technical training in their desired field.
From a company’s perspective, this provides the perfect opportunity to access novel ideas for product development. Companies will also be able to expand their professional networks to include intelligent and highly skilled early-career graduates from a wide range of complementary fields.
Universities should be offering and encouraging more PhD students working in healthcare fields the opportunity to undertake training in medical innovation.
Crucially, this would also broaden career opportunities for PhD graduates to continue researching an area that they are passionate about, without having to rely on unpredictable academic contracts and university funding.
Learning innovation and entrepreneurial skills will be crucial for PhD graduates who have to navigate through Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and a global recession to find a job. Such skills will be essential as we prepare to face future medical challenges involving pandemics, antibiotic resistance, the climate crisis, and healthcare inequality.
“Some PhD candidates may choose to work on innovations to solve healthcare problems facing humanity. Among my students who opted for such training, I have seen a common pattern: they fell in love with problems. This gave them endurance and perseverance — essential traits for solving complex problems and surviving funding delays, technology failures, product launch delays — common hiccups on the way.” — Professor Prashant Jha.
Often PhD students underestimate the potential they have to create meaningful change. However, even simulations and pilot projects that demonstrate small benefits can lead to dramatic improvements in patient care. For example, a medical centre in Chicago used an artificial intelligence algorithm to streamline the use of operating rooms. Although the algorithm only saved an additional 4 minutes per room, this improved communication, workflow and ended up saving the hospital $600,000 per year.
This type of innovation is more critical now than ever, as the COVID-19 pandemic pushes healthcare systems around the world to their limit.
Medical innovation has the potential to positively impact millions of people’s lives by bridging the gap between medical research and reality. It shouldn’t be reserved for ambitious engineers and entrepreneurs. Instead, it should begin early with students who have fresh eyes and new perspectives on creating solutions.
