After another week at my internship, I learned more about what I will be working on for the rest of the summer. In my last blog, I mentioned that I would be sustaining the interventional cardiology and peripheral intervention products at Boston Scientific. This week, I found out that I will be working on the Design Ownership Transfer (DOT) of several microcatheters from the Boston Scientific facility in Cork, Ireland.
Microcatheters are really tiny catheters that are used in combination with a guidewire and a guide catheter for a variety of treatments. They are commonly used to deliver embolic particles, embolic drugs, and embolic coils, with the objective of cutting off blood flow to aneurysms and tumors. I attended meetings with my team and the R&D team to learn more about the entire family of products. I was also able to go into the lab and try my luck with inserting a guidewire and microcatheter into a small artery on a model of the human circulatory system, which gave me a much better understanding of how the products work together.
The most exciting part of my week was watching a live case with my team. I want to be a field clinical engineer when I graduate, so any time I can observe a procedure, I’m a happy camper. I think clinical observation gives an important perspective on how the products really work and improve patient lives. Via video conference, we were able to observe two of our collaborating physicians perform a transcatheter stent implantation in the popliteal artery of a patient. The popliteal artery passes through the knee, and therefore is subject to a lot of bending, making it difficult to stent. The physicians prepared a slide show and presented all of the different options for treatment. They then explained to us each decision they made, as we watched the fluoroscopy images of the catheter and guidewire traveling inside the vasculature. I would love to observe some procedures in person, and am looking forward to participating in more live cases this summer.
As for last weekend, we decided to stay in San Jose and visit Barrio Escalante and Barrio Amón, which are known for being beautiful, artistic neighborhoods. Many of the buildings were beautifully and uniquely painted, and there were a lot of cute cafés and restaurants. We visited a butterfly garden that ran along the river, then got amazing milkshakes at Café Miel. For dinner, we went to a really cool market called Mestizo, which has a bunch of different food and drink vendors selling cuisines from all over the world. I am hoping to spend next weekend relaxing on the beach and getting my tan on after another busy week at my internship. Ciao!
Unique Building in Barrio Amón
Chifrijo in Barrio Escalante