This internship at Boston Scientific is the first internship I have had at a medical device company. Therefore, these past three weeks have been a new experience and have opened my eyes to many aspects of the field. At the beginning of my time here, I was assigned to work on the design of a new product. My main goal thus far has been to research the materials that will be used in order to understand their properties and how they can be best utilized in the design. This seemed like a simple task at the beginning that would involve reading some published research and some documentation in Boston Scientific’s system. However, it turned out to be much more extensive than I anticipated.
It has amazed me how much research must go into a single aspect of one product. Throughout my biomedical engineering education so far, I have learned about the concepts used and done hands-on work as well, but seeing it every day on a large scale opens up so many more things to consider and opportunities to learn. Each time I visit the manufacturing lines or talk to other engineers in my department, I realize more things that need to be understood about the material for a successful design.
This week, I presented an overview of the research I have been doing to my supervisor and my coworker who is leading the design of the product. This included my recommendations for different aspects of the design, as well as the specific testing we will need to do on our prototypes going forward. I got positive feedback from them on what I’ve been working on, and will now be able to move on to physically building and testing some prototypes with my findings in mind. I am sure that more research will be needed as the prototypes progress, but I am excited to see all of my research applied to physical designs.
This week wasn’t all work, however. Jeannette, Michael, and I took a trip to Arenal that included horseback riding, a hanging bridges tour, hot springs, waterfalls, and ziplining. It was great to be able to explore some of the beautiful sights of Costa Rica!