Science shouldn’t end up in books, it should be implemented in daily practice!
by Charlotte Onstwedder
Industrial designer by day and healthcare innovator by night: dr. ir. Mark Thielen postdoc researcher at one of UU/UMCUs strategic alliance universities the Technical ľϸӰ of Eindhoven (TUe), talks about his PhD and his vision on health sciences.
In 2019 he concluded his PhD research on the improvement of reanimation practices of newborn children with oxidative stress. His research consisted of two equally important pathways; one being the education of health professionals such as nurses, neonatologists and gynecologists and the other being the development of a practice dummy (manikin).
During his bachelor he already noticed there were some shortcomings to the current reanimation strategy, as it did not involve any form of feedback on how well health professionals performed during their training. “How can we improve reanimation?” Years later he would be able to answer this question with his, lifelike manikin. The manikin has a proper hand feeling (haptic experience) and due to fluid sensors, can register the effects of one’s reanimation actions (feedback in numbers). The output serves as a basis for optimizing the reanimation education of those specific health professionals. Another use of the manikin could involve further research to find the optimal reanimation techniques for children and adults, based on this haptic feedback.
Even though Mark studied industrial design, he is a healthcare innovator by heart, focusing his master on the development of medical equipment and machinery early on. Here he found a grey area between the designing and engineering of the medical equipment and how they would be operated by healthcare professionals’ in practice. “I get the question on why healthcare quite a lot and I always say: everyone has a risk of needing healthcare at some point, even I”.a
While he would have rather continued with his research, he needed to move on to the next research. “If I had the choice I would have liked to continue with the research and educating using the manikin, and with the help of others market the manikins as well”. Unfortunately, Mark observed some struggles with the intellectual properties (IP) rights, and his PhD research has now been “book-shelved”. Now busy working with another kind of simulation technology: ‘The artificial womb’, in secret he is still waiting for the right people to take his PhD work of the bookshelf.
Science should not end up in a book, it should be implemented in daily practice to make a difference.
“Science should not end up in a book, it should be implemented in daily practice to make a difference”.