2019 is only a few months old and it has already been full of changes. In January, after graduating from the University of Buffalo with my PhD, I packed up my belongings and moved to New England.
I am now working as an entrepreneurial fellow at the TREAT Center. TREAT stands for “Translation of Rehabilitation Engineering Advances and Technology”. It is an NIH-funded center that helps with the commercialization process of new ideas in the world of rehabilitation and assistive technology.
I am enjoying this opportunity to see “behind the scenes” of how new products and inventions actually make it into everyday healthcare practice. Researchers, engineers, healthcare professionals, and everyday people submit their product ideas to TREAT, and we provide guidance to help them at every stage from idea to implementation.
TREAT is a partnership of several organizations, one of which is an engineering firm called Simbex. The engineers are often called in as consultants for TREAT clients, along with experts from Dartmouth and clinicians from various branches of medicine. A great perk of my fellowship position is that I get to listen and learn throughout the whole process.
Like many of the TREAT clients, I didn’t get a lot of business training during my education, so one of the biggest things I am learning is what makes an entrepreneur’s business sink or swim. There are so many considerations beyond the initial idea, especially because of the complicated layers that surround the healthcare industry. I now have an even stronger appreciation for how difficult it is to make disruptive changes to current practice.
The gap between cutting edge technology and what we can actually use with patients is something I have been complaining about for years. There is record of my complaints in the past (gasp) eight years that I have had this blog. I even wrote an article for the TREAT newsletter this month, talking about how the orthotics and prosthetics world is resistant to change. Now that I am working with TREAT, I feel like I am actually able to contribute to innovation, rather than just bemoaning the lack of it. What an opportunity!
One last note: you may have noticed that I gave the blog a bit of a face-lift today. I also updated the “About walkwellstaywell” page. It was about time and it seems fitting within the theme of changes happening in 2019.
Walk well!
walkwellstaywell 