5.06.2011

The birds and the bees and the bikes in the trees




Now that I’ve experienced some time on campus and discovered some of the stranger parts about campus like bikes in trees and squirrels eating pizza. I’ve begun to settle in and start really getting into the reason I really chose Stanford, the classroom. This Quarter I’ve been lucky enough to take a class on anatomy geared towards bioengineers. In the class we tend to work with multimedia tools like cadavers, computer 3-D imagery, ipads (usually as a study tool) and even the solid models you see in doctors offices. The most interesting tool we use though is a computer generated dissection table, which is the fist of its kind and apparently has a lot of hype in the world of medicine seeing as a few weeks into class people with cameras came to film us learning and using the table. Similarly when a guest professor brought plastiginated cadavers people again came to film us using them as a learning tool in the classroom.

Beyond just the learning tools themselves in the class I have been amazed at the types of guest lectures I’ve have the privilege of learning from. While learning about the upper limb we were visited by Professor Kenneth Salisbury who gave us an intro to robotics and brought prototypes of simple robotic limbs. In the next week when we were focusing on the lower limb, a prosthetic designer by the name of Joel Sadler walked us through his design process for the Jaipurknee. The Jaipurknee is a device he crated at extremely low production costs, which out performs many more expensive forms of prosthetic knees. The one thing he focused on the most in his presentation though was his inspiration a 16- year-old amputee(pictured below walking with the Jaipurknee) he had met and wanted to help by creating a device especially for the conditions in which he lived at an affordable price. Which brings me to why I truly love this class.

The people who are a part of the class and who Professor Srivastava refers to as the team(neurological experts, computer experts, wonderful TAs) are all people who are looking to teach their students. They spend their time trying to make all the bones, muscles, nerves, and systems easier and more fun to learn. Each individual also makes efforts to get to know their students inside the classroom and outside the classroom. Hopefully as I continue my years here at Stanford I will continue to find these encouraging and intellectual environments.


Jaipur Knee article:


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