Director: Lynn Osborn, MBA
Co-Director: Thomas J. Brady, MD
Assistant Director: DeAnna Grosbaum
Interactive Communications Specialist: Mike Young
The CIMIT Office of Education (OED) provides educational opportunities to support CIMIT's mission by:
- educating and motivating investigators to benefit patient care
- encouraging the exchange of ideas and information
- promoting collaboration between diverse communities
- providing an arena where interdisciplinary discussion can lead to breakthroughs
The OED encompasses six elements:
1) The CIMIT Forum: Collaborating to Tackle Critical Health Issues
The Weekly Forum provides an ongoing stimulus for cross-disciplinary exchange among the members of the CIMIT community. Speakers are invited from the local and global research community, and are chosen for their pioneering work on new procedures, applications, or technologies. Each CIMIT Forum includes two presentations with time between and after for informal discussion -- the source of many of our successful collaborations. CIMIT members can review specific sessions with online video and text summaries via the myCIMIT site.
Supported by a gift from John Abele, co-founder of Boston Scientific, and the Argosy Foundation, the CIMIT OED is launching the CIMIT Convening Project. The hypothesis is that we can develop an experimental design at the CIMIT Forum to assess strategies for stimulating speakers, moderators and audience to think differently about an issue or topic. The goal is to foster an environment where participants expect to be interactive and challenged. We are researching areas such as communications strategies and technologies, expectation setting for speakers and audience, group dynamics, interview tactics, and meeting assessment.
3) Summer Education Series
In 2001, the OED launched an education series in lieu of the CIMIT Forum during the month of June. The series focuses in depth in a particular topic, offering attendees the opportunity to build an understanding of a new or important clinical or technical area over four weeks and with eight or more speakers. Past Series include topics such as "Nanotechnology" and " Molecular Imaging."
4) Engineering Medical Devices at MIT
Stemming from the success of the Medical Innovations Course and with the goal of accelerating innovations to prototypes and products. The Engineering Medical Devices course (MIT 2.75) engages invited physicians to define a specific medical device problem. Student projects have been submitted to the MIT 50K competition, for CIMIT new concept proposal awards, and for provisional patents.
5) Harvey Mudd Engineering Clinic Program
Each year CIMIT sponsors an undergraduate team from the Harvey Mudd College Engineering Clinic program to complete a conceptual design project related to the management of combat trauma. Recent projects include novel implementation of triage algorithms, water purification, and portable cooling systems for reducing metabolic load at injury sites and a portable medical ventilator system.
6) Entrepreneurship Courses at Harvard Business School, Harvard Medical School and MIT
Inventing Breakthroughs and Commercializing Science in collaboration with Harvard Business School in a course led by Lee Fleming, PhD.
High-tech
Startups course at MIT during Independent Activities Period
A
pragmatic, fast-paced primer course on the dynamics of high-tech entrepreneurship.
Roles
of Physicians and Scientists in the Business World
An intimate exposure of third- and fourth-year MD and PhD students to
career life science opportunities in the business world led by Steve Schachter, MD.