Week one of being in Costa Rica is complete!! This week, we had the Medical Innovation Bootcamp (which was pretty intense) at UCIMED. As we head to UCIMED on the first day, I was excited to interact with the Costa Rican students and learn more about device development. The campus was beautiful, with open archways, a mini-amphitheater in the main hall, and tons of natural light. We went through orientation, did the marshmallow pasta experiment (my team was second!), learned of the medical device projects, and were assigned into teams based on interest. My team was composed of Kaira and two Costa Rican doctors. The project we were assigned was rooted in pediatric bronchoscopy. Infants are placed in a ‘sniffing’ position to open up their airways by pushing their heads back and their shoulders up. During procedures, however, there needs to be a nurse that holds the neck in place (infants are often partially sedated for safety reasons). Towels or pillows are placed in strategic areas to position the baby properly as well. Over the course of the week, we decided that there had to be a more reproducible way of propping the child up in the same amount of time it would normally take (which I’ll talk more in detail later). By the time we got back to our hotels, we were pretty exhausted by the day! For dinner, we had some good ol’ Pizza Hut as comfort food. Kaira showed us a charades-type game that we all played, which brought to light all of the inside jokes we already have at this point.
On Wednesday, we started on market and background research for our projects. Throughout the day we heard lectures from different speakers and did small team activities to determine who the stakeholders of our problem are. Unfortunately, halfway through the day two the doctors of our team members decided to leave the boot camp and did not remain involved in our project. By the end of the day, it was just Kaira and I pushing this forward. Because of this, we ended up skipping lunch to finish certain deliverables by the afternoon in case we had to present. For dinner, we went to Il Piccolo for some heartwarming pasta! It definitely lifted our spirits for the next day.
On Thursday, we focused on prototyping our device. We also all participated in the Bajaj challenge, which involved developing a faster and safer rickshaw. To test our designs, we pushed the rickshaws on a zip line and had it crash against a wall. Our design wasn’t the fastest, but it was definitely safe (our ping pong passengers did not fall out)! It was great to finally get some hands on work during our prototyping session, so I enjoyed Thursday’s session. For lunch we had our leftover pizza from two days prior (brought by Katy in a Ziploc bag and passed around during lunch) – I ended up having a sandwich from a nearby restaurant as well to supplement and serve as Friday’s lunch. For dinner, we had dinner at a salad place.
Friday was presentation day! We finished up learning and developing LBM and IP strategies. Then we fixed up our PowerPoint so that it could be ready for print by noon! Based on the problem and our research, our final idea was to create an angled gel pillow that had a cut out for the head and neck. The head would then be supported by removable gel discs that would lower or heighten the head based on the weight and height so that they could be in the sniffing position. Therefore the head, neck, and shoulders would all be supported, allowing for the patient to remain in the correct position independently.
For lunch we had leftovers. After lunch, we prepped our poster boards and got ready to present. Kaira and I were one of the first groups to present to the judges, who were our professors and professionals from different companies. It was pretty nerve wracking presenting our ideas, especially since we only had four days and limited man power to develop our device. We ended up talking to 5 different groups of judges and people back to back for over an hour! Once our presentation slot was done, we went to look at the other groups and vote which project was our favorite. At the end of the program, prizes were given for fan favorites and for the judges’ choice. After that, the GMI cohort had a celebratory dessert at POPS, then dinner at an Indian restaurant in Escalante. Kaira, Katy, Jhalak, Haruto, and I finished off the night with a game of cards (monopoly version!).
Overall, I had a few main takeaways from the bootcamp:
(1) Strategy and planning are necessary before anything! It gives your problem focus, and helps align your project based on your vision, interests, and goals.
(2) Understanding your market and stakeholders will make you understand your own ideas better. Once an audience can be identified, it’s easier to develop a targeted solution that people will actually be interested in.
(3) Patient and money flow are helpful in visualizing need for the device and how it would operate on a larger scale (not necessarily in manufacturing but, but more how it interacts with different stakeholders in device development and use).
(4) A needs statement is hard work, but it is the “thesis” for a project.
(5) Low-fidelity prototyping gets the point across in ways that a description could not!
That’s it for this week! I can’t wait to see how the Needs Finding Bootcamp goes, and plan to thoroughly enjoy my last few days in Costa Rica.