Engineering an Improved Medical Delivery System
Figure 2. Example of Initial Delivery System. The glove represents the heart and clamp can turn on or off the flow of meds from the tubing.Copyright 2021 Gateway High School
Students investigate cancer treatments and what current techniques are used to help cancer patients. Students are introduced to an actual cancer patient to help them think about how they can help improve the quality of life for a cancer patient during treatment. The students learn what a treatment plan entails as well as how the medications need to be administered. Using the engineering design process, students develop and/or enhance a delivery system.
Students use the engineering design process to design an effective system that can deliver medication(s) to the human circulatory system. Specifically looking at cancer treatments, students must weigh the needs of the patient with the needs of the medical team as they research, brainstorm and develop innovative ways of accessing the circulatory system numerous times with numerous medications. As students build, test and redesign their delivery systems, they must think critically about what materials to use and where on the human body to deliver the medication. In addition, students must account for the rate the medications will enter the circulatory system, the velocity of the circulatory system, as well as the diameter of the different vessels. When testing their delivery system students will need to measure the flow rate of the medications and determine the correct diameter of tubing needed along with the different velocities of various medications.
Biomedical engineers develop devices and procedures that solve medical and health-related problems by combining their knowledge of biology and medicine with engineering principles and practices.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Describe why the circulatory system needs to be accessed so often for cancer patients with a chemotherapy treatment plan.
- Use the engineering design process to identify a problem and select a possible solution.
- Build delivery system prototype using engineering design process.
- Summarize the engineering design process and present in scientific poster format.