Faculty Reflections on Building and Refining a Biomedical Engineering Clinical Immersion Course

Abstract Challenge Clinical immersion experiences are recognized for their educational value to biomedical engineering students, yet the faculty perspective on designing and managing these experiences is often overlooked in literature. We aim to analyze the faculty’s perspective to generate specific recommendations for clinical immersion faculty and administrators. Novel initiative To address this gap, we conducted two 60-min semi-structured interviews with the instructors of a clinical immersion course as part of our community-engaged program evaluation effort. Through thematic analysis, we identified four specific recommendations for clinical immersion administrators and instructors in BME. A senior faculty member should take the lead in initiating a new clinical immersion experience. The clinical immersion curriculum should integrate lecture-based introductions to clinical knowledge, clinical observation, immediate reflection, and formative feedback. Recruitment should focus on getting students with positive attitudes and high motivation. Peer mentors recruited from previous cohorts, instead of teaching assistants, can be a more beneficial and economical investment as part of the instructional support. Reflection These faculty-oriented recommendations have been central to the anecdotal success of our program and significantly add to the current literature on clinical immersion in BME.