By Niecole Killawee
Dr. Clifton Johnston, PEng, doesn’t believe in jumping to solutions. As the Medventions Atlantic academic supervisor and a mechanical engineering professor, his teaching philosophy is simple: fall in love with the problem first. It’s also the foundation of his involvement with the Medventions fellowship program, where his guidance in problem definition, design thinking, and innovation is central to its success.
“There are a lot of good problems and opportunities in healthcare,” says Dr. Johnston.
Medventions Atlantic is a collaborative, hospital-based initiative between the Nova Scotia Health Innovation Hub, Dalhousie’s Faculty of Engineering and its Emera ideaHub, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Mitacs, and INOVAIT. It places early-career professionals alongside clinical teams at Nova Scotia Health, where they can spot gaps in care delivery and design new solutions to improve workflows and patient outcomes.
The practical hands-on experience is a big part of its appeal for Dr. Johnston. After decades of teaching, he believes the best way to spark innovative thinking is to give students and young professionals the chance to work through complex, open-ended real-world situations together.
Dr. Johnston, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Chair in Design Engineering, has mentored over 20 Medventions fellows since the Health Innovation Hub brought the program to Atlantic Canada in 2023.
When a cohort begins, fellows spend six to eight weeks shadowing Nova Scotia Health clinicians in their daily practice. Sunnybrook provides virtual training, and during this time, Dr. Johnston coaches the team to gather as much information as possible and gets them back on track if they start thinking of solutions too soon.
“It’s human nature to see something not quite right and immediately think of ways to solve that problem,” says Dr. Johnston. “If they’re thinking about solutions before the real problem is uncovered, they risk getting fixated on this one idea and missing the real opportunity.”
Once the problem is clearly defined and the fellows come up with ideas for potential solutions, the design phase begins. They work with Dr. Johnston and Dalhousie staff in the Emera ideaHub’s MakerSpace, where they build, test and refine prototypes.
“We always start with quick-and-dirty prototyping. Cardboard, foam, tape, dollar store materials. You don’t want to invest much time or money at this early stage,” says Dr. Johnston. “You need to see it, touch it, handle it, then talk through what’s not working. That’s where the learning happens.”
Guided by Dr. Johnston’s philosophy of “falling in love with the problem,” one cohort shadowing interventional cardiologist and Medventions clinical lead Dr. Ali Hillani observed how heightened patient anxiety during catheterization procedures triggered unfavorable physiological responses. This often leads to the use of sedatives, which increases the risk of complications, makes communication with the patient challenging, and extends procedure times.
Seeing an opportunity to address this, the team explored non-pharmacological ways to help patients stay calm. Their work resulted in Aluma, a wearable headset that combines bone-conduction music therapy, light therapy, and low-frequency vibrations. With integrated EEG sensors and AI capabilities, Aluma’s digital platform also helps the care team assess anxiety levels and anticipate restlessness that could disrupt the procedure.
Sydni Bird, one of the Medventions fellows that created Aluma, says patient anxiety wasn’t a problem of interest for her cohort initially.
“We fell in love with that problem once we spent more time defining it,” says Bird. “That wouldn’t have happened without Clif telling us not to ‘clip the branches’ of all the research we’d done by focusing on one of the first challenges we were excited about.”
Bird entered the fellowship program with an undergraduate degree in medical sciences and an honours in biomedical engineering.
“Throughout the program we talked to so many brilliant people who had experience in various fields,” says Bird. “Clif encouraged us to consider all of that valuable input.”
Examining a pain point from all angles through a multidisciplinary lens is another important lesson Dr. Johnston instills in fellows.
“To solve a problem really well, you need all the viewpoints you can get,” he says. “That’s where the novel ideas that lead to innovation come from.
The blend of clinical expertise and design engineering mentorship makes Medventions Atlantic an ideal training ground for the next generation of health innovators. Dr. Johnston’s role as academic supervisor—and the partnership between Nova Scotia Health and Dalhousie’s Faculty of Engineering—is key to creating a comprehensive learning experience for fellows.
“I appreciated the relaxed, pressure-free space Clif created for us to learn and work together in,” says Bird, who’ll begin medical school this fall with a finely tuned knack for innovative problem solving. “That environment really fostered innovation and creativity— and the Health Innovation Hub's connections to the Emera ideaHUB helped opened a lot of doors for us in terms of providing access to all the practical resources we needed to further our project.”
By coaching fellows through the uncertainty of identifying a problem then guiding them through the iterative solution design process, Dr. Johnston is helping ensure promising ideas from the leaders of tomorrow have the best chance to become solutions that make a big impact.
“I enjoy working with the fellows on these real problems,” says Dr. Johnston. “When we can create solutions that improve patient care and make the work easier for our frontline healthcare providers, that’s a win for everyone and I’m happy to support it.”
