What good are expired medical devices?  Well, Penn Health-Tech believes that tinkerers may find them to be quite useful and has built a stockpile of them for teams to prototype, reverse engineer, and use for their learning as they develop new devices.  The Biomedical Library has partnered with Penn Health-Tech to catalog and make the devices accessible to all inventors across the Penn community.  They are now searchable in a Penn Libraries database, the Medical Device Shared Shelf Collection, and the items are available for “borrowing” at the Biomedical Library. “Borrowing” is in quotes, because the Library does not expect the devices to be returned!  They will belong to the innovator to dismantle and redevelop.

Here’s how to access the collection:

The Biomedical Device Shared Shelf Collection database allows users to browse online to see what is currently available.  To retrieve an item that interests you, open its catalog record and locate the object number in the Title field, formatted as “OBJ #” (see example below). Then, visit the Biomedical Library and present a current PennCard and the object number to staff at the Biomedical Library Information Desk.  Users will be asked to sign a waiver to acknowledge receipt of the object, that they accept responsibility for proper disposal of the device, and that they understand the objects are for engineering purposes only (not for use on humans or animals). For more information, or to let Penn Health-Tech and the Biomedical Library know how you use an object, please contact Victoria Berenholz at Penn Health-Tech or Barbara Cavanaugh at the Biomedical Library. We would love to hear your stories as to how you tinker with these devices!

Sample record in “Shared Shelf” for an expired tracheobronchial stent.

The availability of this collection is an extension of The Biomedical Library 3D Printing and Innovation Services.