The IU Health 3D Innovations Lab is a practical developments focused lab. The main method is 3D printing to improve modern medicine. Brian Overshiner heads the lab and one of his first works was using 3D printing to improve radiation therapy effectiveness through clever use of a mold and silicone gel to create a customized bolus. Over the years his work has expanded beyond bolus' into any aspect of the hospital that could use improvement, and anyone is welcome to come by and pitch an idea.
I have received my first big project at the lab, creating virtual environments for PT! The practical applications of projects I get to be a part of are exactly why I wanted to join the Innovations Lab. The goal is to design something that will both help patients recover from injuries and provide relief for long term bedridden patients. Ideally it would simulate the real world both in graphics and interaction to provide an experience close to real life.
This project is a perfect example of why I wanted to join the Innovations Lab, I love the problem solving that we are allowed to come at from a completely new angle and integrate the newest technologies as solution into age old problems.
The only issue with this is there's constant problems where we are not particularly interested in current solutions. We are constantly faced with the problem of creating improvements on things that many people before us have tried to improve. It is virtually a never ending battle because the only way it ends is if our treatment is perfect.
I am excited to do this project at the Innovations Lab because the interfacing skills I will develop while implementing this project will help me get used to communicating in the hospital environment with both patients and staff. This is a very useful skill for the rest of my life and is invaluable experience now. A specific skill I will take away from this project is programming experience. Even working in medicine, programming is useful for data processing and can help develop effective care methods.
My experience in the lab will allow me to apply the skills I have learned in classrooms and in my free time to real world projects and problems. It will fill in the gaps that learning from a book leaves as well as introducing a whole new set of skills that come with working in a lab. I expect to be successful in developing my skills because it is a great workplace environment and the other members teach readily and well.
The difficulty I expect is transitioning into several kinds of programming. Each language is unique in its own way, but utilizing them all is necessary. Combining this with using them for practical applications for the first time has me concerned with keeping all the languages straight. I know learning all of the software and programming will stress my organizational skills.
My classwork will also loop back into the more technical aspects of the lab's work. Being in biomedical engineering, programming is in every aspect of the Innovation Lab's work. From the printers' Gcodes, to software for image or object processing, to Unity3D or Unreal using C# and C++. Programming is omnipresent and a lot of the work from my classes will contribute to using the Lab's tools to their fullest potential.
My internship has connected to my class experience in two places, biomaterial compatibility and programming. A concern when using 3D printing in a hospital is making sure that everything you provide for patient care is biocompatible, and in the Biomedical program we take a course about the biomaterials and their application in healthcare. There was a very direct connection between my internship and this class as well as between my project with Unreal and my first year programming classes that used the programming language C. Having practical applications for previous course content is a very good motivator to learn coursework with the intent to retain it long term.
I expected a hospital, especially one like IU Health, to be fully rounded out. Not to say it is not perfectly functional, but many of the edges are not filled in yet, and divisions like the Innovations Lab are entirely new branches that emerge to help color in the edges. The Innovations Lab was not some planned out long-term project by IU administration, rather it was made by a radiation therapist with a passion for 3D printing showing how it could work and proving to administration that it would be of great use.
The simple reality is that even in a place as huge as IU Health, there is room for what you believe in if you push for it. In the Innovations Lab, if you have any idea that you think could help, you can absolutely pitch it and try and obtain clearance for making a project. Innovation is not just in the name, it is the core of what the Lab does. Every week there is some new project or idea that just needs some love to make it into a new approach to healthcare.
Over the past year or so, I learned a great deal about the intricacies of running a lab with the regulations in place as well as how to conduct myself in a professional setting. My previous work experience had always been a casual setting, so being at an internship in a hospital was quite a drastic change, and it took a lot of adapting to a place where there is still a fun environment, but a requirement to be professional simultaneously. I had the opportunity to polish a lot of skills and prepare to move forward with work in the future.
The hardest part for me was definitely figuring out how I fit in. I struggled a lot with finding a niche I was comfortable with because the independency is very new to me. Not only did I have my own project, but it was also up to me to determine the most effective way to complete it. Brian and Tim were very helpful as they offered a lot of suggestions and made clear that they were there to answer anything I was struggling with and helping me network with resources outside the lab. I met a lot of people who were either working in the hospital or experts with software and various machines that will be valuable moving forward for their expertise.
