As the former President of the Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Club, Student Doctor Donovan sees the potential of GPX:
Being able to provide optimal care for your patients is so important to me. Right now we're in this pressure to see patients quickly and quality is starting to lack. So with innovation, we can hopefully maintain quality while still hitting the numbers that insurance companies need us to hit. It would also prove that what we're doing is really effective. We could prove that we made an 80% improvement in this patient, and that's going to improve their quality of life, which means they're going to feel better, which means they're going to take better care of themselves, which is in turn going to lower subsequent comorbidities down the line. Proof of quality, and providing quality, I think is really where innovation needs to come into medicine.
While the Makerspace is only a few steps from Leonard Hall, medical students rarely have a chance to visit let alone interact with the space and the opportunities it provides. While presenting at a Club & Organization meeting is a start, Student Doctor Donovan recommends introducing the Makerspace to COM students earlier as part of OsteoBlast! or Orientation:
I think what's hard about medical school is you're so focused on your studies, and you're so focused on what information is being given to you and just absorbing all of that, that you lose the creative side of yourself. How can I really make an impact while I'm here? How can I start thinking about the medicine that we're learning in class? I think this really helps me see that I'm doing this for a reason. I'm sitting in these lectures for a reason, to make a clinical impact. [Innovation] helps me kind of reconnect with that. I am also passionate about it, so it's a lot of fun. There's a lot of different projects going on. You can go in with your own project or start from scratch. So I would say, if you’re interested, just walk in and have a conversation with someone.
For Keith, finding a project like GPX, that is not only innovative but meets consumers’ needs, is a business major’s dream. “My favorite moment was figuring out what people actually wanted, and the validation you get when you ask someone what they actually need and it actually lines up with what you're trying to accomplish.” In the absence of an engineering school, any UNE student has access to the Makerspace and can become involved with any project that interests them. Keith would recommend students get involved. “I think that the Makerspace is probably one of the most important places on this campus,” he says. “It's a place for any student to go with an idea. There's a really wide range of things you can do and accomplish there. I wish more students would take advantage of it.”
As for the future of GPX, the team hopes to continue to advance the project by looking at potential funding opportunities and ways of improving the sneaker. “This is a very specific design,” Esty says, “but it actually meets a need for a lot of different things. Think about if this was a smart sneaker. This could fit into a fitness need where you have intelligent sneakers that will detail out your fitness, like your Fitbit.” Even President Herbert saw a potential market for the prototype. “He’s a big runner,” Student Doctor Donovan explains. “He was interested if they could make [a sneaker] to tell if they are running correctly, or if they need to improve if they're in pain when they run or their knee hurts. It could eventually go from just walking to athlete mechanics.”
Keith and Raja recently competed in Episode Six of the Greenlight Maine Collegiate Challenge that aired on February 23rd, 2020. Incredibly, the judges greenlighted GPX, so they will move on to the next round. “I really do believe that we can get the technology to where we want it to be with just a little bit of help," Student Doctor Donovan says enthusiastically. "Start trialing it with real world patients in a real clinical setting... figure out how exactly it would be the most functional. Twenty years down the line, I want to be like, hey, I had a hand in that…” Or perhaps a foot... <>
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