"Inventor, Investor, Surgeon": An Experiential Vehicle to Engage Medical Students in Biomedical Innovation from...

Innovation is a critically important concept, overlooked in traditional didactic lecture-based medical school curricula. We developed a fun and novel experiential role-play program, "Inventor, Investor, Surgeon" (IIS), as a vehicle for medical student immersive learning of biomedical innovation.

Medical students were guided through the device design and development process by faculty mentors and were divided into teams of three; each team member adopted a role: the Inventor selected a device and presented their design/rationale to the Investor; the Investor used entrepreneurial skills to determine whether to fund/champion the device to the Surgeon; the Surgeon weighed device/clinical efficacy and risk-benefits for their patients. Students then implanted devices (ex. valves) in porcine hearts under the mentorship of cardiothoracic surgeons and industry representatives. Students completed programmatic evaluations (1 = poor; 5 = excellent).

Sixty-seven first- and second-year medical students participated in our IIS program, embracing the unique role-play and hands-on activities and engaging in highly animated discussions. 100% of participants valued the innovative educational experience as "5 = excellent" or "4 = very good" and 100% reported their knowledge and skills improved. Written feedback included enjoying the fun, hands-on, educational aspects.

Our IIS program integrates creativity, design, and entrepreneurial skills into effective applied clinical critical thinking through the use of role-play and hands-on surgical experiences. Engaging medical students early in their preclinical training with biomedical innovation and encouraging them to share fresh creative ideas and unbiased critiques offers multidisciplinary value with added programmatic benefits of reproducibility, low cost, and high translatability to all medical specialties.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-025-02484-8.