Back in 1997, then-Medtronic executive Dale Wahlstrom realized that an entire generation of cardiac engineers was missing a crucial piece of their training.

“You have all these highly trained, highly skilled people who are creative and want to help people who are sick, but none of them had ever actually seen a human heart,” Wahlstrom says. “They’d never worked with the heart, and didn’t really understand the biophysical structure, other than what they’d read in textbooks.”

Wahlstrom believed that closing this gap in education was critical for advancing the medical device field. So with the help of his colleagues Mark Hjelle and Tim Laske, he approached Paul Iaizzo, PhD, a University of Minnesota professor focused on system physiological research and human anatomical studies, for help finding solutions.

Focused on applying the latest scientific discoveries to address medical needs with novel solutions, Iaizzo went on to develop the Visible Heart Laboratories (part of the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Engineering in Medicine), which are now well-positioned to provide essential, hands-on education covering the physiology and anatomy of the human heart.  

Wahlstrom’s meeting with Iaizzo also ultimately led to the launch of an Advanced Cardiac Physiology and Anatomy course, an annual, one-week intensive program designed to help people working in the medical device industry learn more about the intricacies of the human heart.

Although the program was launched as a response to the needs of Medtronic, word about the new course spread quickly. Since the launch of the Visible Heart Laboratories, many additional medical technology companies from Minnesota’s Medical Alley have enrolled their employees in the program and conducted research using the lab’s human heart library (including more than 850 hearts); several of these organizations have made philanthropic gifts back to the lab.    

Bridging the gap

“We design medical devices, so understanding the physiology and understanding the anatomy [of the heart] are critical things that a lot of engineering students don’t necessarily have as much exposure to,” says Alex Hill, senior engineering director at Medtronic. “It’s a pretty critical aspect of designing something that’s going to be safe and used by physicians to treat hundreds of thousands of patients.”

Hill earned his PhD in biomedical engineering in the Visible Heart Laboratories at the U of M, where he took Iaizzo’s Advanced Cardiac Physiology and Anatomy course and spent countless hours conducting research on human heart specimens. After Hill graduated, Iaizzo asked him to help teach the course, which he’s been doing for more than 20 years.

Many Medtronic employees have taken the course and can speak to its influence on their work, including Sarah Ahlberg, the company’s director of research and technology in the Cardiac Ablation Solutions business. She says the cadaver dissection element of the course was particularly impactful.  

“It was the first time I really understood human anatomy and the things that play into medical device development,” she says. “It made me really think about how we’re not treating perfect human specimens … we are treating real-life people with real-life problems, and they are battling a disease or health condition, and these are the things we have to consider when we’re developing medical devices.”

Hill also points out the practical applications of the course to the daily work of medical device engineers.

“The biggest thing is just allowing people to have that fundamental knowledge of what they’re designing their devices for,” he says. “You can design anything fast, but it might not help patients in the end. So being able to develop the right solutions quickly is, I think, what this class really helps with.”

Progress through partnership

As a longtime supporter of the Visible Heart Laboratories, Hill says Medtronic has benefited greatly from this ongoing collaboration.

“We’ve been able to co-build and learn together,” says Hill. “The partnership gives us the ability to collaborate … to really be inventive and create things and develop good solutions.”

Iaizzo also appreciates the decades-long partnership with Medtronic and the professional flexibility it affords him. He holds the Medtronic Professorship in the Institute for Engineering in Medicine, a position that provides him with funding to pursue innovative educational projects, like creating a mobile app that helps medical students visualize and understand echocardiography.    

“This unique collaboration with Medtronic we’ve maintained for over 28 years has not only allowed us to do some really cool translational research, but it’s also allowed me to be a visionary and try things that I wouldn’t have done otherwise. I just feel like I have one of the coolest jobs on the planet.”

Support novel heart research and the next generation of cardiac device engineers with a gift to the Visible Heart Laboratories Education Fund.