¡Hola todos! My name is Sarah Blau and I’m a student in the Global Medical Innovation class of 2024.
I graduated from Duke University in 2019 with a degree in biomedical engineering and a minor in electrical engineering. I was able to take several design electives where I was first introduced to the engineering design process. After graduation, I spent three and a half years working at a medical software company called Epic, where I provided technical support to primary care clinics using our software. My responsibilities included troubleshooting bugs in the software, preparing my clients for upgrades, and supporting new projects such as mammogram and immunization reminders for patients. The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic were a busy time for us, as we needed to come up with ways to track community-scale testing in Epic and make those results easily accessible to both patients and physicians.
I’m looking forward to using my design and problem solving skills to develop prototypes in my internship this summer. Although I don’t yet know what projects I’ll be working on, I’ll be able to take the skills I’ve honed and apply them in new contexts. The work that I did at Epic was entirely software-based, so I’m looking forward to getting my hands dirty (perhaps literally) with some tangible materials and devices. I loved making crafts as a child, and I still have a soft spot in my heart for pipe cleaners and glue guns. I’m also looking forward to participating in clinical observations! I was able to speak with physicians occasionally at Epic, but didn’t have the chance to observe their work in the clinics. Being present while they conduct their appointments with patients will give me much more awareness of the challenges that they face than any email or phone call ever could.
By the end of the summer, I hope to have a greater insight into the day-to-day life of a physician in Costa Rica. I will then use this knowledge to compare with the clinical observations we’ll do back in Houston. I hope to have many ideas of projects that my teammates and I can expand into more advanced prototypes. Finally, I’m looking forward to the relationships I’ll develop! I can’t wait to get to know the doctors and engineers at Hospital Clínica Bíblica, and am excited for the friendships I’ll make with the rest of my cohort. Follow along with me here for more updates over the course of the summer.