Creating a Design Sprint for Surgical Residents
University of British Columbia, Fall 2020
In partnership with my colleague, Christina Hwee. We designed and facilitated a day long virtual design sprint with surgical residents at UBC. We designed the workshop to teach residents the fundamentals of design thinking while applying the methodologies to innovating a surgical tool.
The residents first thought through the problems they face in the operating room.
They brainstormed all the surgical tools they use as well as characteristics they like and ones that don’t make sense. They picked a single tool to focus on: the laparoscopic graspers
Residents took turns interviewing each other to understand unmet needs, pain points, and opportunity areas.
Residents implemented design principles in ideation phase using various exercises
Residents compiled sketches to develop a prototype concept, presented it to peers, and iterated on the design for a final prototype concept.
The Outcome
Christina and I are very proud of the outcome and impact this design workshop had on the surgical residents. The design thinking exercises and activities we used were original activities we designed specifically for the surgical residents and they turned out to be a huge success. The workshop was conducted as part of the residents’ innovation week and many of them said it was their favorite activity of the whole week. By the end of the workshop, one resident was so astonished by the innovation and design thinking process that he proclaimed: “I’ve never felt like this before!”