Blog Post 2 – Engineering in Costa Rica

Overview of the Week

This week, we completed a Medical Innovation Bootcamp at la Universidad de Ciencias Médicas (UCIMED). Over the course of four days, we heard several lectures and worked on groups on various projects, culminating with a final poster presentation.

Diving In

Tuesday morning started bright and early at 6 am, when I started getting ready to go to the first day of bootcamp. We arrived at UCIMED, and after quick introductions, we started off with a talk about Strategic Focus. Something I was interested in during this talk was that there are three major industry trends that drive strategy in the field — innovation, clinical data, and globalization.

We also talked about finding need. This is a topic that I personally think is super interesting and is one step of the product development process that I greatly enjoy. During my senior design project (we created a device to prevent overvolumization and hyperventilation when using BVMs) we spent a good amount of time speaking with experts in the field such as nurses, EMTs, and doctors. Because of this, I enjoyed this talk and was able to reinforce the knowledge I gained in my undergraduate studies about how to determine the true need in a particular area.

On this day, we also were given different project topics to chose from which we would be working on for the remainder of the week. The project that was assigned to me, along with two other GMI students and one local University of Costa Rica student, was focusing on creating a preventative device for patients with diabetic foot ulcers. For some background in this area, it is very common for diabetic patients to develop neuropathy, which is damage to the nerves. These patients are also likely to develop foot ulcers which go undetected due to the lack of feeling in the feet, and oftentimes, this can result in complications as drastic as amputation.

The day ended with dinner at Pizza Hut. I never thought I would travel to Costa Rica to eat at an American chain, but let me tell you, it was so good!  It was interesting to see how formal and clean the restaurant was compared to the fast food/delivery version I am used to.

 

Continuing the Innovation

Wednesday started the same, and we were out early in the morning. I actually surprised myself with how I have been able to alter my schedule to waking up at a normal 6am time (something I haven’t done since high school!). We arrived and jumped right into the first lecture of the day about Patient and Money Flow. Something I leaned about for the first time was Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment Analysis (PDT), an analysis looking at the involvement and need in each intersection of the stakeholders (patient, payer, provider) and the continuum of care (prevention, diagnosis, and treatment). We also discussed the topics of market analysis and customer needs, two areas I knew of because of senior design, but was able to reinforce on a shorter time scale.

We also received a lecture about the engineering design process. This basically encompasses the process of bringing an idea to life, the thing that makes me so passionate about bioengineering. We also discussed how to develop design criteria and the different categories of information (objectives, constraints, and functions).

We ended the day with a lecture about brainstorming, probably the most creative part of the design process. This talk focused around brainstorming ideas for what a paper clip can be used for. We then translated this knowledge to brainstorming ideas for our focus project.

Coming to Life

For a change on Thursday morning, I decided to get something a bit more traditional to the US for breakfast: pancakes and scrambled eggs!

At the bootcamp, we learned about engineering decision making and how to create decision matrices, which help to choose which idea will be best. We also had a lecture about prototyping around the world and the different levels of prototypes that can be made.

The afternoon was dedicated to prototyping. First, we completed the Bajaj challenge, where we needed to make a model of a bajaj (small vehicle used in many countries) that was both the fastest and safest (meaning that our two ping pong balls stayed in the car). This was a really fun activity that allowed me to meet two Costa Rica students. When we returned, we worked in prototyping our proposed solution to our focus project.

The Grand Finale

At bootcamp, the final two topics that we heard about were intellectual property and marketing, two very important areas when bringing a product to life.

We finished up our presentations and had a lunch break before the final presentations. We were very happy with how our work came together and turned out. Our solution was to create a weight scale-like device where the user would step, and IR temperature sensors would take a measurement of the temperature of the soles of the feet, send it to an app on the phone, and inform the patient of whether or not they are at risk of developing a foot ulcer (because ulcers display a different temperature than the rest of the foot).

We were all a bit nervous for the presentations as there were going to be sponsors and judges there, but once we began presenting, all our nerves went away, and our excitement about our solution took over. Overall, this was a very exciting and rewarding experience.

 

After the bootcamp ended, we headed over to… POPS! I got the guanábana ice cream that my family has told me is so good, and it was so refreshing. I would say it was the perfect way to end a long week.

Going Forward

This last week was a great learning experience, and it is only the beginning. This week, we will be doing a Needs Finding Workshop and starting our internships! And come back to hear about our adventure to Arenal… Talk to y’all next week 😀