Curriculum

The GMI program requires 30 credit hours and is designed to be completed in one academic year. The Program staff provide ongoing mentoring to students to meet the program requirements while working to achieve their career goals. The 30 credit hour requirement includes the following courses:

SPRING

Spring Semester

• MGMT 762 – E-Lab: New Enterprise (3 credits) 
• BIOE 530 – Medical Innovation & Design Lab (3 credits)
• BIOE 628 – Medical Innovation Industry Seminar 2 (1.5 credits)
• + 1 Quantitative Elective (3 credits)
• + 1 BIOE 500+ level elective (3 credits)
• + 1 Graduate Elective (3 credits)

The GMI program features project-based courses designed specifically for students to be prepared for professional practice. These courses include:

Medical Engineering and Design Lab

In this one year studio-based lab, students apply technical engineering and prototyping skills to medical design projects. Participants are taught and apply a range of topics including engineering design processes, medical materials, biocompatibility, design for manufacturing, rapid prototyping, medical equipment, sterility, manufacturing techniques, and quality system implementation.

This class runs through the fall and spring semesters, and you will work on the same project (with the same 3-5 person team) throughout. The project may be sponsored by a clinical or industry client. 

Read about how Greg Zhang’s team developed a pediatric bag-valve-mask for use in low-resource settings during the COVID-19 pandemic

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Healthcare Innovation Entrepreneurship Courses

In this set of fall/spring courses, students follow the methods of Biodesign and Disciplined Entrepreneurship to discover innovation and create a venture to meet unmet clinical needs. Through an interdisciplinary team of med students, business students, and other GMI peers, student teams work through topics such as: Business plan development, market and competitive analysis, stakeholder analysis, pitching, reimbursement, regulatory, IP, and clinical strategy. Led by Faculty from Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Rice’s the nation’s top school for entrepreneurship, 4 years in a row. 

This class runs through the fall and spring semesters, and you will work on the same project (with the same 3-5 person team) throughout. The project may be different than the Engineering Lab project. 

Read about how Kunal Shah’s company is improving cardiac pacing to eliminate dangerous cardiac arrhythmias without the use of defibrillation

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Medical Innovation Industry Seminar

This two course seminar sequence alternately prepares students for a successful career search in the medical technology industry while building their network of individuals in the med tech industry. Students in the GMI program and the Applied Bioengineering program participate in this class together.

In the fall, students hear presentations from individuals in the med tech industry with 1, 5, and ten years experience. They complete case studies and interview individuals in an attempt to help the student identify their desired spot in the med tech industry. Students also produce the media necessary to mount a successful career search, including, a resume, current LinkedIn profile, networking practice, interviewing skills, cover letters, personal elevator pitch.

In the spring students continue to develop their professional network by connecting with individuals and conducting interviews with them on their careers. Students complete these interviews in small groups and produce podcast episodes of the interaction. Additionally, students pitch at medical device competitions. 

Read about how Dr. Emily Reiser, one of the annual speakers in this seminar, works to foster medical innovation in Houston