TMC PULSE

t m c » p u l s e | a p r i l 2 0 1 9 30 Bilinguality While companies have developed a plethora of devices and technolo- gies to solve health care problems, there remains a disconnect between these devices and their real-life applications. "I had an engineered product years ago for incontinence, but it was uncomfortable and difficult to insert and remove," Boone recalled. "It worked mechanically, but it didn't fit the human body. It was just too obtrusive and certainly too pain- ful to place and remove, I remember thinking, and this was 20 years ago. The idea was right, but the execu- tion was completely wrong." Translating a new piece of technology into the clinical or sur- gical setting isn't an exact science. Because medicine and engineering have traditionally been taught separately, there hasn't been a lot of cross talk between the two fields. Doctors have their medical-speak and engineers have their own jargon. It's easy to see how import- ant information could get lost in translation when two groups of peo- ple don't speak the same language. EnMed aims to eliminate that communication barrier and train students to be bilingual in medicine and engineering. Byington, a Mexican-American who was raised on the southern bor- der of Texas and grew up speaking English and Spanish, knows the importance of dualities all too well. Her upbringing informed the way she views the world and medicine, motivating her to practice two specialties: general pediatrics and infectious diseases. "Sometimes disciplines don't work well together because transla- tion can be very difficult," she said. "The people that we are bringing will be those translators. They will be able to speak both languages. … We need health care professionals who are experts in technology and who can translate, if you will, to engineers and others the needs of patients." A bigger footprint The EnMed program will be housed in Houston on the sixth floor of Houston Methodist's West Pavilion and at the Texas A&M Health Science Center's Institute of Biosciences and Technology. In 2017, Texas A&M purchased an 18-story tower and a 2-story low-rise building at 1020 Holcombe Blvd., in the Texas Medical Center. After renovations, the building will support the pre-clerkship education of EnMed students and be outfitted with classrooms, a multidisciplinary teaching lab and standardized patient/simulation space, as well as a maker space equipped with spe- cialized equipment for students to create new devices and technology. EnMed will expand Texas A&M's presence in the world's largest medi- cal center, Byington said. "When you look at the ecosys- tem of the Texas Medical Center, by being able to bring in engineering and biotechnology, we are filling a new niche. We are adding some- thing new and innovative to an already thriving clinical environ- ment," she said. "We are going to see so many inventions come out of this program. It's going to change the way that we deliver health care. The first patients that are going to benefit from it will be the patients of the Texas Medical Center." The first class of students will graduate in 2023. Although Pettigrew said he is "not so idealis- tic to think that each one of these physicianeers will solve every problem in health care," he believes EnMed will prepare them for more "eureka moments." "We're creating the fertile environment and the education that is likely to give rise to this fruit, so it's very difficult to predict what these [students] will come up with," Pettigrew said. "But we can look at history and get some idea, and see that when you take bright, imag- inative minds, who have bound- less creativity, who have limitless imagination, who have the potential for unbridled innovation, and give them the tools to do all of those things, it's beyond our imagination to really know." SiennaPlantation.com 20+ MODEL HOMES Homes from the $250s MILLION + #1 Selling Community in TEXAS! • Seven on-site Fort Bend ISD schools K-12 • Acres of parks + trails, resort-style waterparks • On-site fitness centers, golf, tennis, sports complex and stables 610 45 6 TEXAS 8 8 59 90 288 521

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