In the Fall of 2013, I took the ME 294 Medical Devices class at Stanford. In the class, I learned about different aspects of medical devices including design, collaboration with physicians, patents, and market introduction. The class also had a team final project. My team worked on the design of a medical examination table for morbidly obese patients.  

 

Obese patients tend to go to the hospital to get checked more often than the rest of the population, and the US has a growing obese population that will need more treatment in the future. Sometimes it can be embarrassing and even humiliating for obese patients when they have a hard time getting into the table.

 

My team studied the design process starting with need finding, initial prototyping and further developed prototypes of a robust tilting examination table. The idea behind this design was to ease the process of getting into the table. The table was designed to be tilted at the center of mass of the person, and the point at which it is turned has a large lever arm to minimize the effort of the person the patient into the table. 

 

The frame of the prototype was made of welded square steel tubing, which made easy to connect joints, the top was half-inch wood with a foam top covered by a vinyl sheet. See pictures below of the CAD model and the final prototype.