Being a part of GMI means learning how to juggle travel, class work, projects, and now job searching concurrently. October was the month I had been anticipating for a while and I can’t believe it’s finally come to a close! Starting from the weekend my team and I went to Costa Rica through this past weekend when we returned from the Society of Women in Engineering Conference, every weekend except one was spent traveling.
I mentioned in my last blog post that Dr. Richardson, Callie, Abby, Siri, and I made a short visit back to Liberia, Costa Rica. The goal of the trip was to meet with several key people who are helping in the progression of Callie’s Consultika project and Abby and Siri’s DialOasis project. It was intriguing to learn how we would need to implement and seamlessly weave these products to fit in to how the current Costa Rican medical system functioned. This could be applied to how we received funding to run clinical trials for DialOasis or how we would make Consultika (a consultation application) a vital asset of every physician’s daily work. In order to have our projects be receptive to KOL’s (key opinion leaders), we needed to collaborate with as many entities as possible- this meant talking to different doctors and nurses, various associations that funded certain populations, and even the CAJA (social security of Costa Rica). Our meetings during our trip yielded several of these important connections and interactions that have brought these projects one step closer to the final product.
Having fresh coconuts in Liberia before heading back to Houston!
My project, Stent-X, does not have ties in Costa Rica, but I have been consistently working on various aspects of it this month. Since our last porcine animal study, we have run a cadaver study and another porcine study. It’s always crucial to be able to see how your project will fit in a pre-clinical setting to best cater its features to a clinical application. These trials have provided a lot of valuable data and lessons that have helped guide our next steps moving forward. In my part of Stent-X, I have been working on the redesign and creation of a nitinol facet to aid in the magnetic removal. I read several articles about the material and it wasn’t until I actually spent hours in the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen working to create one representative prototype. This emphasized the importance of getting hands-on practice sooner rather than later because I learned much more than I had read about nitinol. After one week, I had a optimizing my method in working with the nitinol and I am still refining it for different variables.
Working on creating a nitinol prototype.
Beyond implementation projects, two important conferences fell into the month of October. Conferences are a great way to network and meet recruiters for companies you want to work for. In mid-October, we attended the Biomedical Engineering Society Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Prior to the conference, a few of us attended an informational forum at Gore where we learned about their company’s culture, products, and campus. Their culture was very unique in that they don’t have a hierarchical structure of leadership, but rather a lattice structure. In addition to visiting Gore, we also visited Medtronic in Tempe, AZ. Through our campus tour, we learned their specialty was very focused on the micro-electronics of their products. In the end of October we attended the Society of Women Engineers Conference in Austin, Texas. I highly recommend this conference for its job fair! You will have the opportunity talk to several large Medtech companies like Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Abbot, BD, Stryker, J&J, and many more.
Rice University representation at Gore!
Back at Rice University, the semester is already winding down! With only one month left before finals, many big project deadlines are approaching. I know it will be another busy month, but I am happy to be able to stay local!
Until next time!