First of all, let’s rewind back to September 2000. The UK was gripped by fuel protests, the Sydney Olympic Games were in full swing, and Mariah Carey, featuring Irish boyband Westlife, were at number 1 in the UK music charts with this hit (allegedly). For me, this was the month that I began my MSc in Ergonomics (Human Factors) at Loughborough University.
Then, little over a year later, with my postgraduate degree in hand, I began my career in Human Factors consultancy, working on projects in high hazard industries like rail, defence and aviation where the application of human factors processes and principles were well established or at least in their infancy.
As a Loughborough University alumnus myself, it has been great to be able to give back to the institution that launched my career in Human Factors all those years ago.
A career in the medical device sector wasn’t really on my radar at that time, and it wasn’t to be honest until the FDA issued a draft Human Factors guidance document1 in June 2011. Since then, Human Factors in the medical device sector really has taken off. In some regards though the medical device sector is still playing catch-up when it comes to the application of Human Factors, particularly compared to those other sectors that I worked in when I first started my career.
One consequence of this growth in interest in the medical device sector, where Human Factors expertise is now in demand, is the challenge of being able to find suitable Human Factors specialists with the right aptitude and skill set to join the Human Factors group at Team.
Fast forward to February this year, and I was more than pleased to accept an invitation from Dr Gyuchan Thomas Jun, a lecturer at the Loughborough University Design School, to guest lecture on the subject of Human Factors in the medical device sector to second year undergraduate students taking the BSc Ergonomics module ‘Ergonomics and Development of Complex Systems’.
My lecture must have gone well, as I was invited back earlier this week to conduct an even longer 3-hour guest lecture to students studying the ‘Healthcare Ergonomics and Patient Safety’ module. But this time I would be talking to postgraduate students, who were taking the same Ergonomics Master’s degree I took at the turn of the millennium!
It might sound cheesy, but I hope that these lectures might have inspired the next generation of students to start their Human Factors career within the medical device sector.
As a Loughborough University alumnus myself, it has been great to be able to give back to the institution that launched my career in Human Factors all those years ago. It was also satisfying to hear that following my lecture, some of the students had been inspired to pursue their options in medical device human factors. So you never know, there may be a blog post from another Loughborough University Ergonomics graduate here at Team popping up in the future.
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Icon design: Sebastian Langer
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