When visitors step into the MUNMED 3D lab at the Faculty of Medicine, they often assume a team of specialists is hard at work behind the scenes.
In reality, the operation is driven by the ingenuity, persistence and curiosity of Thomas Osmond, the lab’s sole technician and newest recipient of the President’s Award for Exemplary Service (Champion of Service).
Problem solving hub
Mr. Osmond’s journey into 3D printing began during a co-operative education work term during his mechanical engineering (biomedical stream) degree at Memorial.
“My second work term was in Finland, and it was my first exposure to 3D printing,” he said. “But all of my work terms had a bit of a design element, and those experiences led me to this lab.”
Mr. Osmond joined the Faculty of Medicine in early 2023 and has since built the lab’s reputation as a creative problem-solving hub.
“[Thomas] has already garnered a reputation for his commitment to learning, research, sustainability and outreach.”
Requests from faculty, staff, learners or external organizations can come at any time and with varying levels of complexity.
“The first thing I usually tell people is ‘Sure, no problem. I can do that,’” he said. “Then I spend the next month trying to figure out how I’m going to do the impossible. But it’s worked out for me so far.”
Bringing thought to life
His projects often involve extensive research, such as a request to make models of the human heart and eye.
“Mechanical engineering lends itself well to medicine, as the musculoskeletal system is basically a mechanical system. But I’ll spend a lot of time getting up to speed on the structures they want me to replicate. Then I’ll think about which materials to use and test a few to see what works best.”
With feedback from his clients between each iteration, Mr. Osmond can eventually craft a successful design.
That doesn’t mean, however, that the process is always easy.
“A lot of the requests are very open-ended,” he said. “Sometimes people come to me with a model of something expensive that they are wondering if I can make cheaper. Other times, they don’t exactly know what they want or are imagining something that doesn’t exist. It’s challenging to bring people’s thoughts to life.”
‘Honoured and privileged’
Dr. Patricia Cousins, Mr. Osmond’s supervisor and manager of the faculty’s Medical Laboratories and Clinical Learning and Simulation Centre, says Mr. Osmond champions learners, faculty and staff.
“His personality and technical abilities have garnered trust from those who share their ideas and often intellectual property to make a successful project come to fruition,” she said. “He is at a young point in his career, and he has already garnered a reputation for his commitment to learning, research, sustainability and outreach.”
For his part, Mr. Osmond says he was “honoured and privileged” to find out he was going to be recognized for his work.
“It’s very meaningful and it’s certainly made me feel a lot more confident in the work I’ve been doing.”
