JeffDESIGN wants to train the next generation of doctors to approach everything from medical devices to systemic public health challenges with a sense of creativity and curiosity The hospital at Thomas Jefferson University. At this point, the connection between quality of the urban environment and public health is no secret. Neither is the need for design projects that can solve problems in the health care space. So what if there was a way to combine the medical qualifications of a doctor and the keen problem-solving eye of a designer into a single professional? That’s exactly the kind of doctor JeffDESIGN, a pioneering design program for medical students, hopes to create. Offered as a “school within a school” at Thomas Jefferson University’s Sidney Medical College, its curriculum aims to train the next generation of doctors to approach everything from public health efforts to surgical techniques through classes, hands-on design projects, and workshops. Since its launch just under three years ago, students have had the chance to learn from architects, design labs (including the Little Devices Lab at MIT) and other makers all over the Northeast in an effort to foster cross-disciplinary thinking. Inspired in part by his desire to help low-income families he felt had been left behind by the health care system, Dr. Bon Ku founded JeffDESIGN to encourage doctors to use their right brains in service of the people and communities that doctors can sometimes forget. Now, within 4,000 square feet of former bank vault underneath Philadelphia’s Federal Reserve building, they’re working on projects that tackle everything from mobility solutions for the disabled to bigger public health projects like SmarterPLAY,which maps movement using sensors in order to turn playgrounds into built environments optimized for childhood physical activity. Trending Now Martyn Bullard Outfits a Serene Development in Grand Cayman It would be a stretch to expect every medical school in the country to offer classes in 3D printing, but co-director Robert Pugliese believes that JeffDESIGN graduates can start to narrow the gap between two disciplines that are less disconnected than most realize. “They’re going to have a whole new language that nobody who’s ever graduated from a med school has had before,” he told Next City. “So that when they’re being tasked to think about how to help to improve this community, they at least know how to have the conversation about the upstream causes of these health outcomes.” At a time when the world of health care requires more creative thinking than ever, here’s hoping that the next generation of doctors can bring lessons from design studios into hospitals.
