Since Monday, we have had the pleasure of immersing ourselves in various aspects of Costa Rican healthcare. Our class was split up into groups and sent into rotations for observing clinical atmospheres. My group started with with a visit to UCR Dentistry. Originally, I went into the visit thinking the trip would be sort of uneventful. When I think of medical devices, dentistry is definitely not a field that comes to mind. After taking observation notes of things that seemed odd, or could be improved, I feel like many biomedical device companies may also overlook the field.
Within our first hour there, I had filled up a page and 1/2 of notes ranging from simple observations of things that were different in comparison to US institutions, to the multiple errors and delays in care I observed that seemed at least surface level to be easy to prevent. There were multiple events we observed where either equipment failed or the dentistry professional/ student definitely struggled to complete a task. For example, I watched multiple individuals struggle with the Dental Dam – when trying to insert the dam in the posterior region of the mouth, it either ripped or took what seemed to be an abnormally large amount of time. I noticed one of their devices failed, a UV curing light, and the student spent a large amount of time troubleshooting because the device simply said “error”. This caused her to be unsure whether it was a charging/battery fault or an internal fault with the device. As someone who worked on equipment in the past, it seems odd to have an error arise with no sort of suggestion or guidance on what the error pertains to. We also noticed that every single professional or student had to bend the suction tube as well as had to find a creative way to keep the tube in the patients mouth. One person I observed asked the patient to hold the suction themselves momentarily, another draped it over the persons mouth, and a few bent the tube so far it sort of hung on the patients cheek by itself. Moral of the paragraph: there seems to be A LOT of room for improvement in simple and major devices in dentistry.
The next observations we had were at a Geriatric facility that provided comprehensive care for the elders in San Jose and surrounding areas. The campus consisted of a rehabilitation facility, general care facilities, specialists, pharmacies, and specialized operational suites for endoscopy and general surgery. Here we got to scrub up and observe a cataract surgery, and we were able to shadow the staffed Ophthalmologists performing prep work for a separate cataract surgery. We were able to observe complications that arise from current methods of measuring optical diameters and all. The provider was really nice and showed us all of the different types of machines they use to essentially perform the same task.
Lastly, we visited Hospital Clinica Biblica’s operating rooms. We were able to actually go into the suites and observe operations for hemorrhoids, cancerous tumors, and another mass on a mans genital area. In every procedure, we were able to locate differences between U.S. operations and here.
Getting to be in the operating rooms while the surgeons were working was definitely a great experience, and I’m so glad our group was lucky enough to witness so many! In the end of our experiences, we translated our observations into common needs and need statements, as seen in the photo below.
