Who are you going to be during the COVID pandemic? How has COVID-19 impacted the health care industry? Are these impacts permanent?
These questions and more were addressed by five members of the Texas A&M University Department of Biomedical Engineering’s External Advisory Board as they teamed up to host a virtual panel titled “COVID-19 and the Medical Device Industry Outlook: What You Need to Know.” in late April. Conducted through Zoom, the panel discussed how COVID-19 has impacted their jobs, as well as answered pre-submitted questions from students.
“COVID-19 has forever changed the U.S. and the world landscape,” said panel moderator Jack Richards, patent attorney at Trop, Pruner and Hu. “No industry has been left untouched. In particular, the health care industry has been profoundly impacted.”
Even with new remote workspaces, many of the panelists said that it’s business as usual for their companies. Firings have not happened due to COVID-19, although they have heard of people being furloughed at other companies. Much of the industry does have a hiring freeze, but most seem to be honoring (or delaying start dates) jobs already offered.
“I think it's going to pick up really rapidly because we do have testing now,” said Jill Almaguer, senior project manager in the Information Systems Division at Memorial Hermann Healthcare System in Houston. “We have in-house testing for COVID-19, and all of our patients will get screened coming in. So if you're involved in any kind point-of-care testing devices, then you're going to be very busy.”
Professional growth during COVID-19
Panelists offered advice on how students can continue to grow their knowledge and skills while social distancing and/or sheltering in place.
Jeff Summers, senior vice president of Quest Medical, recommended that students interested in the biomedical industry should educate themselves in three different areas: innovation, technology and leadership.
Richards suggested taking this time to learn new skills, such as working with Arduino boards, an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software that’s inexpensive, and learning the programming is essentially free.
Almaguer followed with suggestions for students to experiment with making phone apps for medical devices. Browsing online was also encouraged, whether it’s learning about different types of jobs biomedical engineers can pursue, or watching TED Talks that may lead to future reading material.
With many industries now working remotely, face-to-face interactions have been severely reduced. Panelists were asked how students should reach out to develop or maintain network contacts.
All panelists encouraged students to reach out either through email, online or through resources like the Biomedical Engineering Society, LinkedIn or job posting boards. For those who have had job or internship opportunities revoked, Almaguer encouraged students to stay in touch with that company.
The changing biomedical landscape
Summers and Kevin Boyle, senior vice president of research and development in Becton Dickinson Interventional, said their workers are on rotating schedules of being in the office with checks being done to ensure people stay healthy and socially distant in the office and labs.
“It was very disruptive in the beginning, just trying to figure out how do we adapt,” Boyle said. “Now that we've adapted, I'd say that we're back at 100% productivity working this way, but then we're not 100% effective because we're not able to do everything that we need to be able to do in terms of going out to customers.”
Jacqueline Havelka, co-founder of Inform AI, a startup based in the Texas Medical Center, said venture capital funding cycles have become more uncertain, but new government and private funding has also become available for COVID-19 related projects.
“When you have a startup, you're trying to extend your runway however you can,” Havelka said. “COVID has provided us a lot of great potential opportunities because there is billions of dollars of COVID money that has come onboard from outlets like NSF, NIH, etc. We're looking at actually modifying our current product line to meet some of those challenges, as many startups have done.”
While many changes are likely temporary, panelists said they can already see how some of adaptations may turn into permanent changes. Some adaptions they discussed were how job training and how the delivery of medicine will happen as more industries and clinics adopt tools such as telehealth.
Summers said he expects to see macro-economic changes as well.
“In the 30 years after the U.S. came out of World War II, there was an enormous amount of innovation and macro-economic changes in the U.S. and the world,” Summers said. “I think we're going to have something very similar to that because people have been forced to do things very, very differently and conform to a brand new way of living with a lot of unknowns.”
Whether graduating in May or starting a new year in biomedical engineering at Texas A&M, panelists encouraged students to continue learning and growing.
Havelka said the advisory board will continue to work toward making sure biomedical engineering students have job opportunities, internship opportunities, etc. She encouraged students to stay the course, and added that career paths for many take twists they did not expect, but looking back, those turns can make for a more enriching experience.
Richards ended the panel encouraging students to continue to network when and where they can.
“The medium used to network may change over the years, but the need to network never changes,” he said. “So get the contact information, use it, and best of luck to you all.”