Why medical technology?
For a number of years Staffordshire STEM Centre has been using the topic of medical technology as the context for activities in Science and Design and Technology. The reason for this is the wide range of career opportunities available and the way that medical technology makes a superb context for curriculum activities given its relevance to all our lives. There is also an opportunity to address misconceptions about the industry and gender perceptions/ imbalance. In 2003 we were asked by the Learning and Skills Council to develop a range of curriculum activities that would help to promote the wide range of career opportunities in medical technology to young people. Changes in the medical technology industry and the strong history of developing medical devices in the West Midlands ensured that this development was very relevant. In the summer of 2004 the completed CDs were sent into every high school in Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent.
The success of this project led to the request to take the work further to develop more activities involving a wider range of partners. We were very fortunate that the medical technology cluster opportunity group (COG) within the regional development agency Advantage West Midlands were prepared to support these developments. To facilitate this support we were included in a single project managed by Medilink West Midlands. This gave us access to industry experts to ensure that we reflected activities from the industry accurately. We are very grateful to all of the partners in the project for the help and support they gave. The outcomes from the project are a dedicated medical technology website of resources and loan boxes of medical technology themed equipment hosted by all of the Stempoint’s in the West Midlands.
The project aimed to promote medical technology career opportunities by demonstrating how and where medical technology and related activities contribute to the curriculum and young peoples learning in terms of:
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Work Related Learning statutory requirements at Key Stage 4
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Science and Design & Technology
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Personal, Social & Health Education
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Citizenship
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Specialist diplomas in Engineering, Society Health & Development and Manufacturing and Product Design
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Enterprise education
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Providing examples of curriculum materials that teachers can use with young people, supported by healthcare professionals and medical contexts
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Showing career progression and common routes within the medical technology /healthcare sector including typical salary and qualification levels.
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Referencing appropriate career information and providing links to further information sources for pupil's curriculum coursework as well as careers.
Dedicated website
The website can be found at www.medicaltechnology.org.uk. The website allows free access to all sections apart from resources within the teachers section which is password protected. The links to some material within this section were felt to require a password so that learners could not have unsupervised access. Please contact our office to be given the access information, there will be no charge.
Loan box
We currently have two boxes of medical themed equipment and associated lap top computers. The equipment and activities are all themed around medical diagnostics. A lot of the equipment involves data logging for heart rate, pulse rate, breathing etc and there are also items such as a bubble counter, ultrasound and thermo graphic/ infra red sensor and enzyme reaction ‘dip’ sticks. Our website mentioned previously has a range of free medical technology linked curriculum activities on it written by teachers. The loan boxes can be loaned for up to half a term so that you could use the equipment with a full year group, G&T enrichment group, ASSEC (After School Science and Engineering Club) STEM leaders activities etc.
The lap top computer comes with the loan box and has pre loaded software on it to avoid any problems with software licensing. Data that is collected can then be downloaded to the computer, saved on to a memory stick that is provided and then imported to a school or college computer network to be analysed using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. A computer control interface is also provided to facilitate work on controlled environments, bio-mechanics activities etc.
Healthcare Ambassadors
We have a small but growing number of STEM Ambassadors from the healthcare and medical technology sectors. The NHS also has a Healthcare Ambassadors scheme that runs alongside STEM Ambassadors so that both schemes complement each other. These willing volunteers all have CRB clearance, insurance and a wealth of knowledge of the industry.
Buy in activities
We have a number of activities that have been developed we could deliver as half day or one day activities in school or at an identified venue. This year we have run a number of ‘Gender days’ for pupils to try to address misconceptions regarding the nature of modern medical technology and healthcare. We have activities that could be used to run a medical technology day with a similar format to an industry day. A number of our CREST award project starters use medical contexts as the focus for the work. Please contact our office for further details and costs.
Current developments
We are working with the Lifelong Learning Network in Birmingham and Solihull to produce ‘Bitesize ‘ teaching and learning modules that add enrichment to the curriculum and also improve progression to higher and further education. Aspects of these units bring stretch and challenge in the activities and supplementary work. Two units have been completed and uploaded to our Medical Technology website one on ‘Sound Engineering’ linked to the Engineering diploma and one on ‘SMART and Modern Materials in Medical Technology’ linked to the Manufacturing and Product Design diploma. The work has great relevance to a number of courses outside diploma delivery so please check out the units on the Medical Technology website. N.B. You will need to contact our office for user name and password details to access the curriculum resources section of the website. We hope to be able to keep adding material to this website as new innovations are introduced to keep the material up to date.
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