On November 26th, 2019 the MediTEC Semester Welcome took place again together with the CUREMeD Usability Challenge in cooperation with the CeMPEG e.V.. Interested students and guests were able to test the influence of good and bad usability of medical devices on (again partly newly developed or optimized) test setups. By operating appropriately “prepared” surgical navigation systems with and without haptic guidance or training systems for minimally invasive endoscopic surgery, points could be collected and more or less existing design deficits of different “surgical workplaces” could be fought against. In addition, special suits, test eyeglasses and devices made it possible to experience the influence of age-related physical limitations on the usability of medical devices at first hand. The “Footswitch Hero” test demonstrated the usability of surgical footswitches and an integrated surgical workstation.
Depending on the weather conditions, the students were also able to fortify themselves with freshly baked waffles, mulled wine and other hot drinks. Furthermore, they had the opportunity to get to know better the Chair of Medical Engineering of RWTH Aachen University and the non-profit CeMPEG e.V. for the promotion of usability in medical engineering.