�鶹��Ƶ

For medical students, tying surgical knots is a foundational skill. 

But when Marco Istasy, a third-year medical student at the University of Toronto, was hunting for a knot-tying board to help him practice, he discovered that most were either too big and bulky to carry in a backpack – or were simply too expensive. So he teamed up with Tiffany Ni, a first-year resident in diagnostic radiology, to find a solution.

The pair, who first met through a 3D printing club in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, designed a knot-tying board that’s more compact, affordable and, they say, better suited to the needs of medical learners. 

“Surgery and procedural skills can be daunting for medical students to learn,” Istasy says. “A lot of us want extra tools to help us practice.”  

The new board features suction cups for securing to flat surfaces, a bar to hold elastic bands and string, and a set of cylinders users can attach to the board to practise tying knots at various depths and cavity widths. A trio of pegs allows users to practise knot tying at different tensions. 

The duo shared a prototype with their mentor Andrew Brown, a vascular and interventional radiologist at Unity Health Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital and an assistant professor of medical imaging at Temerty Medicine. 

“Innovation can democratize the cost of learning tools,” says Brown, who aims to use technologies such as machine learning to make health care more affordable and focused 3D printing during his MBA studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Increasing ... affordability will help students and, further downstream, the people they’ll treat as patients one day.

“Beyond Toronto, the benefits can be even greater as there are many places where medical education is more expensive.” 

With Brown’s encouragement, Ni and Istasy shared their board prototype with Mark Wheatcroft and Eliza Greco – both clinicians at St. Michael’s Hospital and faculty members in Temerty Medicine’s department of surgery.

Wheatcroft asked to use the boards at an annual training event for first-year residents in vascular surgery from across Canada.

“To see our board help with the learning objectives that day was fabulous,” recalls Ni. “We could see the learners practise a particular firm knot that uses gentle tension critical in vascular surgery.

“It’s fulfilling to know that a solution that felt personal can be helpful to others, too. We’re excited to see where it leads us in the future.” 

The pair also presented the board at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada’s International Conference on Resident Education in Ottawa last year. 

Ni says the moderator’s first questions were: “Where can I buy this board? Can I buy it from you? And how much does it cost?”

And just like that, Ni and Istasy had made their first sale – just one month after filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

That success helped fuel creation of their start-up company, RISE MD, which stands for Research, Innovation, and Simulation in Education. The company’s mission is to make affordable, modular medical education tools tailored to their end-users' needs.

Ni and Istasy are now discussing how to incorporate the board into curricula across Temerty Medicine and at medical schools across Canada, as they continue to grow their company.

“The response has been overwhelming,” says Istasy, who is a member of the first cohort of the  at Temerty Medicine.

“When Tiffany and I first sat down to discuss this board, neither of us ever thought it would take off like this and become both a valuable educational tool and the foundation of a company.”