Med Dimensions is proud to offer a canine stifle, MD-E-2000, now available for purchase.
Product Overview
This product is a model of a left hind limb, derived from real CT scans to provide as close to real anatomy as possible. The model includes LCL, MCL, Meniscus, Patellar Tendon, and Tendon of Ider constructs. It is a replica of a small/medium canine, roughly a 15-20kg dog, and is 8.5 inches long.
Key Features & Benefits
The ligaments are constructed of a blend of silicone that allows for proper constricted motion of the joint, as verified by leading veterinarians. The partial tibia and femur is 3D printed in a filament that is ideal for cutting and drilling practice. The silicone ligaments will hold suture, and are secured within the bone- not glued on- to prevent premature ripping of the ligaments from the insertion sites. The bone holds anchors, buttons, plates, and screws, providing tactile feedback to the user and ideal for demonstrations.
1) When did you know you wanted to be a veterinarian and what fueled that decision?
Since I was 5 years young. I’ve always been fascinated by science, nature and dogs. I even started my own dog walking business when I was in 5th grade- a young entrepreneur! But it really was intended for me to understand dog behaviors, breeds and really get immersed in their understanding. When my parents took our family dog “Archie” to the veterinarian, I knew right then that was my calling. The ability to help animals heal and provide a voice to the voiceless resonated with me at an early age.
2) You’ve got quite the following on social media and host an excellent veterinary focused program. How did you get to this point?
I. DON’T. KNOW! I still find it fascinating that people are connected to me and my content. I love it and am truly humbled with gratitude and appreciation. The more awareness and education we can bring to everyone, the happier the world can be- and I truly mean that. My platform is all about teaching kindness and it starts by providing unconditional love to another species. I know when the pandemic hit, my colleagues were getting hammered with appointments and questions. I wanted to help out as much as possible and figured elevating my Tik Tok voice further by hosting daily live streams would help. Low and behold, the amount of messages I received both from veterinary professionals and pet parents was incredible. “Thank you for putting my mind at peace. I brought my dog in right away as I didn’t know it was an emergency.” Those kinds of messages really fueled me to continue to post educational and fun content. As many of my followers and students know, I love to teach and laugh at the same time. I believe it’s the perfect secret sauce for valuable education.
3) With DVM360, you see so many great companies and products come through trade shows and conferences. What do you think separates the great ones from those who have failed over the years?
Supporting veterinary education will help any company put its mark on the map. And I’m not talking about a sales pitch but rather true meaningful education. Regardless if the content is medical versus non-medical, providing a fun, innovative and inclusive atmosphere of veterinary professionals coming together to learn some valuable and practical takeaways is a home-run of success. As we all know, knowledge is power and if a company invests heavily in the veterinary professional’s education, they will see the “why”, ‘what”, “how” and ultimately the “who”. Invest in us and your ROI will be achieved.
4) What do you see as the future of veterinary medicine? Where do you see “dvm360® LIVE!” progressing to over the next few years?
Well that’s a loaded question and a very complicated one but the future of veterinary medicine is bright and strong. We are a resilient and adaptive profession, as recently noted by the pandemic. We know we stronger together and celebrating each other’s differences helps for greater outcomes.We certainly have our flaws but we are owning them and doing something about them. We will continue to move the needle for DEI, mental health awareness and student loan debt. There will be a strong push for virtual care, mentorship and a team-based approach to learning (incorporating all departments of the veterinary team to continuing education). There will be a much greater demand for veterinarians both large and small and a need to make their education cost effective. I have a lot more to say but you’ll have to stay tune and follow me as I have a very strong idea on certain trends that are coming in the very short term of the profession.
Who knows where dvm360® LIVE! will take me and our team! But we are buckled in and enjoy the incredible ride we are on with the great feedback we are receiving from colleagues and more specifically, veterinary students! They are LOVING the fact that they get to see veterinary professionals doing great work both in and out of the exam room. It was really important for me personally to showcase the fun side of what we do. We wear many hats in our lives and being a veterinarian is just one of the many hats that we wear. Season One showed to us that we are bakers, gardeners, singers, dancers and artists. I can’t think of a better veterinary show that truly celebrates the individual. I always thank my guests for being in our profession. We truly have some of the most incredible people in our profession who happen to be superheroes known as veterinarians.
5) To be a veterinarian and have your role with DVM360 has got to be difficult to balance. What does your day to day look like and how do you stay on top of it?
I like to compare this analogy to practicing full time in my small animal practice—it often feels like I am in 5 exam rooms at the same time with open invoices and no records completely written up! It’s a very busy day with appeasing many different kinds of people. As a practicing veterinarian, you’re mostly concerned with caring for clients and their pets. As a veterinarian in multimedia and continuing education, you’re concerned with your colleagues, organizations and lots and lots of companies. It is a lot of work but a lot of fun. Having a great team to support me on my crazy ideas (and yes some of them are truly outside of the litterbox ideas) that start in the board room and go out into action is truly remarkable. I still get to do private practice as I think it is so so important to stay sharp and relevant on the latest in veterinary medicine. I enjoy implementing what I learn from the conferences and client calls into action.
6) What drives you to be successful and be the best veterinarian that you can be?
My family. I have the most supportive husband I could ever ask for. Chris is someone who gets me and is there for me through all of it. My dogs are my “why”. I say this in a lot of my speaking events how important it is to turn off the doctor hat and put on the pet parent hat. I get on the floor with the dachshunds and be silly, goofy and fun. It helps recenter my why of what we do as veterinarians every day. The human-animal bond is a sacred bond that I cherish and protect closely to my heart. I also had the most supportive parents anyone could ask for. My best friends happen to be both my mom and dad who are no longer with me unfortunately. I always wondered what they would have thought of my next chapter in my career now that I’m in multimedia and continuing education. My mom used to tell me I was born with a microphone and a stethoscope so I think they knew where I was heading!
7) What do you do in your spare time, if you have any?
I love, love working out. It’s my true mental health break. I’m very passionate about fitness as many of you who follow me know. There are days I would love to sleep in and do nothing. But I force myself to wake up at 4:30am to start my gym morning and know how crucial it is to be the best employee, husband, dog father, friend and mentor I can be every day.
I’m equally passionate about music. Music is my life and therapy. I enjoy it whether it be on Broadway, in my car or at home. That’s probably why I got so hooked on Tik Tok! The music brought me there!
Chris and I love Disney. Walt Disney always said, “Getting old is mandatory, but growing up isn’t.” And we are truly kids at heart. Life is way way too short to take yourself too seriously. I enjoy making others laugh and feel good about themselves. I want my legacy to be how fun, inspirational and motivating I am to others. There’s enough toxic “things” out in this world today. I want to surround myself with those that love to laugh, learn and love animals. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for!
Med Dimensions is proud to offer 2 versions of high quality suturing pads for the teaching and learning of surgical suturing and knot tying: MD-E-0033B (3 slit) and MD-E-0053B (5 slit). Minimum ordering quantity is five (5) units.
Product Overview
This product comes in 2 versions: MD-E-0033B and MD-E-0053B.
MD-E-0033B is a double layer suturing pad, replicating the dermal and subcutaneous layers with three (3) 100 mm slits for a student to hone their suturing skills.
MD-E-0053B is a double layer suturing pad, replicating the dermal and subcutaneous layers with five (5) slits of varying lengths for a student to hone their suturing skills.
Key Features & Benefits
Made from a proprietary blend of silicones, these pads provide tactile simulation similar to real anatomy, and layers are denoted with different colors. These suturing pads have an embedded mesh to simulate the “pop feeling” associated with suturing. Each pad arrives in a hard plastic case with non-slip feet to increase the longevity of the pad. Additionally, the size of the pad is conveniently low profile, so anyone can easily fit the pad in a backpack or other small bag.
The path to veterinarian doesn’t usually start with engineering, but Cornell student, Sean Bellefeuille, is not your typical vet student. His inspiration for becoming a vet student actually came from a club he joined early on in University, helping to create 3D models for children’s prosthetics.
This club sparked an interest in the possibilities of medical technology and was the inspiration for his new business. Today, Sean balances his busy life as a vet student with his new business, creating models and other creative technologies to assist vets.
Although he is in vet school now, it wasn’t an easy decision for Sean. Before he enrolled in vet school he had discovered a passion for 3D printing, but had no idea what he wanted to do with it. There are so many paths 3D models can take.
Today, he is confident in his decision, and excited about the future his innovative creations can give vets, the pets they care for, and their owners alike.
Despite how hard it was to make his decision on veterinary school, he does have another idea up his sleeve if it ends up not panning out. If he had to choose a different career, Sean would love to put his engineering skills to work designing new lego sets.
His passion for creating new things and figuring out how to put things together could easily be put to work creating new and exciting sets for children instead. Fortunately for the pets however, he’s happy in his career choice so far.
To relax after a difficult day of veterinary school, Sean loves nothing more than a good game of hockey. Sean is French Canadian, which means he has played hockey most of his life. When he’s out on the ice with his team, he thinks of nothing else besides the game for that period of time.
The freedom to focus on nothing else can help clear his head and make going back to school the next day easier.
Like most in the veterinary industry, Sean has his concerns about the field and the direction it is heading. His concerns include the price of care. It costs money to buy new technology, train staff in new techniques, and pay them the wages they deserve. It’s very similar to the human medicine field.
Unfortunately, very few pet parents have insurance to pay for this in the same way humans do. Sean believes that finding low-cost solutions to more expensive procedures would help save more pets and bring financial relief to pet owners.
Although it is sometimes hard to see from the customer side of things, vets face some rather unusual challenges. Pets can come in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and species. A surgery for a 5-pound chihuahua won’t be the same as it will be for a 50 pound lab.
This is one of the reasons Sean is so passionate about his start-up, Med Dimensions. Veterinarians are creative beings all on their own, and often have ideas for tools or low-cost solutions for pet treatments. Sean’s mission in life is to provide these tools to veterinarians so they can save more lives.
From Cornell School of Veterinary Medicine, 08/18/2020
There are many gateways to the veterinary medical field. For Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) graduate Sean Bellefeuille, it was 3D printing.
“As an undergraduate in biomedical engineering at RIT, I became really passionate about 3D printing,” he says.
He joined a club that specialized in the technology, working with organizations that helped get custom, 3D-printed prosthetics to children with amputations. “That’s where I learned the basics of design and printing,” he says. He continued an in-depth exploration of the technology, studying the market needs and gaps, and discovered that veterinary medicine held huge potential for 3D printing.
An image of the 3D bone model printed by Bellefeuille and his colleagues. Photo: M3Dimensions
Currently, only a handful of companies produce anatomical models and prosthetics for animals, and their products are highly expensive, Bellefeuille explains.
The spark that ignited his business came from a Rochester-area emergency veterinary hospital, which reached out to RIT’s biomedical engineering department in hopes of expertise. They had a difficult orthopedic case — a patient with a rare femoral deformity that needed surgical intervention. To prepare for the procedure, the surgeon wanted a 3D printed model of the bone to examine.
“The department funneled it down to me and couple other students who worked with 3D printing,” says Bellefeuille. “Without knowing how, we said ‘sure we’ll do it’.”
Using a CT scan provided by the veterinarians, Bellefeuille and his colleagues printed a 3D model of the femur. The RIT students were invited to watch the surgery, during which the surgeon paused and asked to look at the femur for reference before making a certain cut. “That was a big moment,” says Bellefeuille. “It was proof that our 3D printed anatomical models delivered a real benefit to a veterinarian in a clinical setting. We figured, if this person uses it, there are definitely others that will use it too.”
This was the beginning of “M3Dimensions” (pronounced “med-dimensions”) Bellefeuille’s start-up biomedical printing company. They are currently working on a business and strategy plan with a goal of formally launching in January 2021.
“Our goal is to increase accessibility for 3D printing technology, 3D models and other types of related tech such as custom cutting guides and templates to help with surgical cuts,” says Bellefeuille. “We’ve identified a demand for devices which would actually attach to the bone to assist the orthopedic surgeon in making more accurate cuts.”
This synergy of biomedical engineering and veterinary medicine also inspired Bellefeuille to pursue the veterinary profession. “I always enjoyed the medical and biological aspects of my undergraduate program,” he says. “And then saw how open the veterinary medical field was — that there was an opportunity to bring in my engineering knowledge.” Bellefeuille ended up shadowing and working at the same emergency veterinary hospital and surgeon whom he had printed the femur for, and from thereon, was inspired to pursue veterinary medicine.
With that career in his sights, Cornell was quickly Bellefeuille’s first choice. “Cornell has always had a great reputation,” he says. “And, being based in Rochester, a lot of the veterinarians I worked with for my business had gone to Cornell and spoke of it highly.” Plus, as a New York state resident, Bellefeuille knew that tuition would be markedly more affordable.
Cornell also strongly appealed to Bellefeuille thanks to personal connections he made prior to applying. “I reached out to [Maurice R. and Corinne P. Greenberg Professor of Surgery] Dr. Rory Todhunter letting him know of my interest, and he invited me to come spend a day with his surgery team,” he says. “I got to spend a day shadowing them, watched some surgeries — it was really great to start a relationship with a well-established surgeon at Cornell.”
Bellefeuille also got to know Jorge Colón ’92, D.V.M. ’95, senior lecturer with the Center for Veterinary Business and Entrepreneurship, who immediately connected him with the Center for Veterinary Business and Entrepreneurship’s resources and introduced him to CVM veterinary entrepreneurs like Drs. Jonathan Cheetham and Rodrigo Bicalho. “It was great to get those connections before starting school,” he says.
Like everyone, Bellefeuille has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Veterinary business slowed down considerably as elective surgeries were canceled or postponed. Rather than go idle, Bellefeuille and his team decided to volunteer their expertise and work with a local Rochester group to 3D print face shields for local hospitals and veterinary practices — donating as many as 25,000 shields in total. “We didn’t have much to do, so we just wanted to figure out a way to help,” Bellefeuille says.
As Cornell slowly begins its reopening process and welcoming students back to campus for the fall 2020 semester, Bellefeuille is excited to embark on this next step of his career. “I’m so excited to learn anatomy and to get that real hands-on knowledge,” he says. He plans to pursue veterinary medicine as his primary profession, potentially in a specialty service, and have his 3D printing business support the work he would do as a veterinarian. “I definitely want to incorporate 3D printing in whatever I’m doing,” he says.
Sean Bellefeuille, a first-year student in the College of Veterinary Medicine, plans to launch a startup that produces anatomical models of animals with a 3D printer. Photo: John Munson/Cornell University
In normal times, M3Dimensions would be bettering the surgical process for veterinarians and providing veterinary students with 3D models to enhance learning.
But during this global coronavirus pandemic, the Rochester-based medical device company is instead creating lightweight, protective face shields for health care workers.
M3Dimensions, a startup launched by a group of former and current Rochester Institute of Technology students, has been in contact with medical professionals on Long Island to design and produce a practical face shield.
“We’re trying to work with their protocols so there’s an airtight seal,” said Sean Bellefeuille, co-founder and CEO of the firm. “We have to make sure everything fits their needs.”
The goal is to supply health care workers with a tangible extra layer of protection, using the firm’s 3D printing process to create the top band that holds the shield. The shield uses a closed-cell foam cushion and polyethylene terephthalate plastic, which does not absorb moisture or harbor bacteria.
“With everything going on, a lot of people are trying to help,” Bellefeuille said. “But you don’t want something that isn’t safe and gives someone a false sense of security. This would be an extra barrier to block the virus.”
Based on printer inventory, Bellefeuille figures M3Dimensions can produce 40 to 60 shields a day. Other firms with Fused Deposition Modeling 3D printers can also produce the shields, he said. The M3Dimensions website provides more information.
M3Dimensions was founded in the summer of 2019, though the seven-person group has been working together on implementation of the business idea since 2018.
The company works to provide veterinarians a precise 3D model of a knee ailment or bone abnormality before surgery. The anatomical model is made from polylactic acid plastic and is created from an MRI or CT scan. The technology can also be used in the medical field.
By examining the model ahead of time, doctors can determine what exactly must be done in surgery to correct the existing medical issue. That reduces time in the operating room and time under anesthesia for the pet, said Michael Campbell, director of business development for M3Dimensions.
The firm has also provided veterinary schools with a batch of anatomical models so students can see, touch and feel what they would find in surgery.
This week in the Times we’re going to share a story from Med Dimensions co-founder, Sean Belefeuille:
A local surgeon we have been working with reached out and asked for a femur and tibia/fibula 3D model for one of his patients, a medium sized and mixed breed dog. Dr. Hofmann suspected deformities in both the tibia and the femur. The main issue was several bone deformities that could affect patient movement and cause pain, eventually resulting in osteochondral arthritis and a plethora of other orthopedic complications if it were to go untreated. The surgical challenge in this case with having multiple deformities is that it would require the surgeon to do multiple procedures during the same surgery. This increases the surgery time, the risk to the patient and the cost to the family. After reviewing the models we provided him with, the surgeon determined one of the deformations was not as severe as he had thought while reviewing the imaging scan (CT). He decided the second procedure could be cut out, decreasing the surgery time and the cost of hospital stay.
A general X-Ray of a canine knee joint with a defect. Credit: University of Pennsylvania
The actual process of repairing the issue was very similar to the first, a sort of deformation that he cut out a wedge to better align the bone. The procedure of a corrective osteotomy was a tremendous success in pre-op management, during surgery, and post-op follow up.
Med Dimensions has the capability to suit any and all surgeons needs through only the highest quality products and services!
Please leave a comment if you have any questions, and reach out to Fred at fred@m3dimensions.com if there is anything you’d like him to cover!
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