Dr. Billy Cohn Discusses Engineering in Healthcare During Keynote Event
Dr. Billy Cohn Discusses Engineering in Healthcare During Keynote Event
During the keynote event on Nov. 16 at the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Conference and Exposition in Houston, William E. (Billy) Cohn, M.D., world-renowned heart surgeon and medical device inventor, told the engineers in the packed Hilton of the Americas ballroom that the healthcare field was one in desperate need of their skills and expertise.
“Engineering in Healthcare” was the theme of the special keynote session by Dr. Cohn, who is the director of the Center for Technology and Innovation, the associate director of laboratory surgery research in the Center for Cardiac Support and director of the Cullen Cardiovascular Research Laboratory at the Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in Houston. Cohn, who has been developing medical devices since medical school, has more than 90 U.S. patents either granted or pending, and an additional 60 international patents for his medical innovations.
Following an introduction by ASME Executive Director Thomas Loughlin, Cohn began his presentation by noting that although he had spent many years training to be a heart surgeon, we was basically a frustrated mechanical engineer. “I went to medical school for four years, did five years of general surgery residency, and then three years of cardiac surgery residency,” he said. “It takes 12 years of additional training after college to be a heart surgeon. But I spent most of my off-time in evenings and weekends doing mechanical engineering. I have a real passion for heart surgery, but I also have a passion for medical device innovation.”
Noting that the mechanical engineers he had worked with throughout his career had played a vital role in making the devices he invented commercially viable, Cohn warned the audience of a catastrophe looming in our immediate future – the rising cost of healthcare. The amount of money being spent on healthcare in the United States is currently growing at a rate that is three times greater than the increase in U.S. gross domestic product. Within the next 10 to 20 years, those costs will become unsustainable, he said.
“So only through innovation, finding less expensive ways to identify disease earlier in its course, to treat and prevent major illness and major hospitalizations, are we going to be able to avoid this disaster,” Cohn said. “And where is that innovation going to come from? It’s going to come from engineers. I know ASME’s mission statement is to leverage engineering expertise and prowess to make the quality of life better for all of us. To make the world safer and better. Well I argue that healthcare innovation is a very real and very necessary way to accomplish that objective.”
Throughout his presentation, Cohn mentioned several lessons that he had learned during his quest to become a medical device innovator — lessons that engineers should keep in mind as they develop their own innovations. These included focusing on a field that you truly understand, being resourceful while prototyping, and maintaining an open mind when resourcing materials for your project.
Keeping your invention simple is another important lesson learned. “You know if you have an idea, and you start talking to key opinion leaders about it, and they tell you why it’s too simple to work,” he said. “Hurry up and patent it because it’s probably the most brilliant thing in the world. In all of the greatest innovations in modern healthcare, the sage and august opinion leaders said, ‘This will never work.’ And of course all of them did.”
Cohn also urged the engineers in the audience not to be afraid to talk about the ideas they have. “Everybody’s got ideas, and they’re hesitant to share them,” he said. “Which is tragic, because the most common thing that happens with a great idea is nothing. And so, I encourage you if you’ve got an idea, go ahead and protect it. Send in a patent so you can share your idea with everybody. Because by socializing ideas, you get new ideas. It cross-pollinates, and cross-fertilizes, and becomes something important.”
Cohn’s keynote talk was preceded by the unveiling of ASME’s new State of the Society video, which was introduced by ASME President Julio C. Guerrero, and the presentation of a video covering the ASME Innovation Showcase (ISHOW), which was introduced by Tom Loughlin. ASME President-Elect K. Keith Roe provided closing remarks for the session.
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