Can you lend me a hand?

Well, we have officially stayed in Costa Rica for more days than the number of days we have left. Pretty crazy because I am still processing the fact that I am living in another country for two whole months. Anyway, I am sure you are itching to know what exciting things took place this week, so let’s fill you in, shall we?

 

The adventures of the GMI group this past weekend included a thrill-seeking ride up a mountain to a fancy restaurant called Ram Luna on Saturday night. Ram Luna was actually recommended to us by a technician that Katy and I met at a hospital in Puntarenas the 1st week of our internship. The restaurant is up in the mountains with an incredible view of San Jose, and it was especially pretty at nighttime. Although the fog was mainly blocking the view for most of our time there, we managed to get some pictures while it was still a little clear. Most of the options on the menu were based on meat dishes, so I ended up getting the classic rice&beans and fried plantains which were both considered side dishes, haha. I enjoyed it though, I was mainly there for the views.

We also tried this new dessert which came in a flower pot and had a fake flower on top. All of us hyped up the dessert a ton but it was just vanilla ice cream with some cookie crumbles for about $7. If you go to Ram Luna, don’t fall for their tricks, go to a nearby ice cream place to get cheaper vanilla ice cream. After Ram Luna on Saturday night, Katy, Laurel, Raniyah and I stopped by Dr.Wettergreen’s apartment to snag some of his leftover groceries and toiletries and also to say goodbye before their 3 am flight back to Houston. The next day, the GMI group went on a nearby adventure to Hacienda y La Chimba which is a hiking trail in San Jose about 30 minutes from Hotel Selina. Honestly, I was expecting a straight sidewalk-like trail with some rocks here and there that led to some restaurants or the sculptures shown on their website. I forgot that I was living in Costa Rica and that those straight sidewalks don’t even exist on the roads, let alone on hiking trails. What I am trying to say is, that La Chimba turned out to be 100x better than I expected. It was an actual hiking trail with extreme ascents, descents, rocks, and mud which required the use of hiking sticks. We walked about 5 miles in 2 hours or so and stopped at many points along the way to get pictures with man-made sculptures such as a Buddha statue, a Costa Rica sign, heart, butterfly wings, and a hand ( yes, a hand – look at the picture). For lunch, we discovered some amazing places around San Jose including this cafe called Otoya which is only a 3-minute walk from Selina.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IT’S WORK TIME

At the internship this week, we stayed in San Jose. Nope, no trips this week. Sad. I know. In fact, we stayed so close to Selina that we mostly went to Hospital Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia (only a 5-minute walk from Selina). On Monday, we hung out with Lucia at Calderón to perform preventative maintenance on Hill-Rom beds and change electrode cables on a GE EKG machine. Preventative maintenance on smart beds mostly consists of unscrewing the base of the bed where all the motors and other electronic equipment are located and cleaning it of dust that might interfere with the components. We also check each of the functions of the beds before giving it a thumbs up. Most of the functions usually work and few require any corrective maintenance, BUT yesterday we got lucky. Well, Lucia really wouldn’t call it lucky from a field engineer’s point of view, but from an intern’s perspective, we got to witness how to change the air blower in the smart bed. It needed to be changed because when we were checking the pulmonary therapy functions in the smart bed, the motor sounded a little crazy and louder than normal because the blower was old and dusty. At Calderón today we also were troubleshooting why the main power switch on an anesthesia machine was not working. We got a new power switch that needed to be replaced but since Lucia had never replaced one before, we all were reading the manual and figuring out how to do it together! We figured it out but turns out the new switch was broken as well (it would not stay in the power off position). So we spent all morning in a freezing cold surgery room for basically no results, but at least we know how to change a power switch on an anesthesia machine. Besides working on anesthesia machines, EKGs, and smart beds at Calderón, we also visited Centro Nacional de rehabilitación which is a private hospital in San Jose to perform preventative maintenance on Holter monitors and Tonoport V monitors. Holter monitor is a take-home continuous EKG monitoring device that takes measurements for up to 48 hours. A Tonoport V monitor is similar except it measures the patient’s blood pressure every 20 – 40 minutes. Maintenance on both machines requires running a stimulator to ensure the results are consistent with the values portrayed. At the same hospital, we also performed preventative maintenance on a treadmill used to evaluate a patient’s cardiovascular strength. This one was a bit more complex because we unscrewed some parts to clean the motors and wires of dust, and also opened the brainbox to check on the fuse and other circuitry. The strength test has about 7 stages of difficulty, each stage runs for 3 minutes, and at each stage the incline and speed of the treadmill increase. Yes, the strength test is just as difficult as it sounds. To “test” the treadmill, we all got a little gym workout in and took turns running on it, and yes of course I almost fell on the treadmill. The software which portrayed the EKG waveform was also tested with a stimulator. All was a-okay and we called it a day. Along with smart beds, EKG machines, anesthesia machines, treadmills, and continuous glucose and blood pressure monitors, we worked on some not-so-interesting devices: patient-room lamps at Centro Integrado de Salud De Coronado (a clinic). They also required preventive maintenance, but we sped through all of them because it was mainly testing to see if it worked and also wiping it off of dust. Whew! That was quite a long week with exposure to lots of different medical devices and hospitals. Can’t wait to see what we have in store for the upcoming week 🙂

In other news, a cyclone in the Caribbean Ocean this weekend infringed on our plans to travel to Manuel Antonio. We will be expecting a TON of rain in Costa Rica, so it will be another stay-in-enjoy-the-rain-get-some-brunch type of weekend. We do have some exciting things planned for the upcoming weeks though such as a one-day trip to Tortuga Island, a day at Irazu Volcano, and a weekend trip to Guanacaste! Fingers crossed these plans work out and no other cyclone decides to birth this month.

Till next time,

Jhalak M.