A Ferry-Tale Ending

Remember the cyclone and the buckets of rain it was going to bring to San Jose last weekend? Lies. The cyclone occurred but San Jose barely got any rain on Friday and Saturday; just the normal amount. Also, remember the canceled Manuel Antonio plan? Well, we decided a cyclone would not get in our way of a day trip to the beautiful beaches, forests, and monkeys on the west coast. After a restful Saturday, Laurel, Katy, Haruto and I took a 6 am bus on Sunday to Manuel Antonio. It took about 3 hours to get there and we were welcomed by shop and restaurant owners giving us their best sales pitches on their food, coconuts, souvenirs, etc. One of the shopkeepers, Maria, made us pinky-promise that we would buy coconuts from her after our hike. After dodging all of them one by one with our secret weapon: “gracias, no lo quiero”, we finally made it to the entrance of Manuel Antonio national park and were ready for our 2.5-mile hike. First, of course, we smothered on layers and layers of sunscreen and bug spray and mapped out the most scenic trail which would end with us relaxing on the beach. Each national park I visit never fails to take my breath away because of its incredible beauty. The forest was very well preserved and the trails were fairly easy and short to hike. The beaches were white and sandy with picturesque views of the Pacific ocean. The pictures I included below serve no justice, but hopefully, they will prompt you to visit at least once! If the sandy beaches and lush green forest do not lure you in, maybe monkeys stealing bananas, eating from trash cans, or climbing onto the front seat of a pick-up truck might? That’s right, we saw the whole show, inside and outside the national park. I included some fun videos of the monkeys, check them out! After some monkey magic, breaking Maria’s pinky promise of buying a coconut after our hike, and snacking on Patacones with guacamole, we finally took the 5p bus to San Jose. We were dreading the fact that we have to wake up early for work the next day, but were very content that we took this last-minute trip. Hopefully, there will be more to come soon 🙂

WORK-CATION

At 7:46 am on Monday, we had no idea what location we would be at for work this week. At 8:00 am, we were packing our suitcase for a week-long trip to Guanacaste. Yup, only happens at Meditek. Guanacaste is a coastal province about 4-5ish hours (depending on traffic) northwest of San Jose. Most of Monday was spent traveling to Guanacaste so we did not visit any hospitals that day, but the rest of the week we ended up visiting 5 Ebais and 1 hospital. We performed preventative maintenance on EKG machines and vital monitors and also performed corrective maintenance on a clinical blood pressure monitor. This week’s EKG monitors were the newest GE model but followed the same preventative maintenance procedure as previous EKG machines we worked on. We checked the blood pressure, blood oxygen level, and heart waveforms with a stimulator as usual. The same procedure goes for vital monitors that measure just the blood oxygen level and blood pressure. Something new we worked on this week was performing corrective maintenance on Welch&Allyn blood pressure machines. The screen for about 5 of the monitors would not turn on, and we discovered that is because the flex cable which serves as the communication to the main board from the buttons was burnt. This was because there was humidity build-up inside all the machines causing the wires to burn. This is a common problem on the coastal sides because of their proximity to the ocean. Since salt is an electrolyte it can accelerate corrosion between metals resulting in damaged electronic components. The moisture and salt in the air can quickly damage medical devices requiring increased spending and maintenance for these devices. We opened each of the devices, checked for the damaged part, and connected a working part to ensure the device turns on. Even though we only worked on a few devices, it was important for us to be there for the whole week because communication with the hospitals is not always reliable. When we visit a hospital to check on a couple of assigned machines, we are required to check in at the medical equipment office with our assigned la Caja (Seguro Social) engineer. The engineer or sometimes a nurse practitioner follows us and keeps an eye on our work. After they approve of the work we did with a sign and stamp, Meditek is free to bill the hospital or the Caja. However, a common problem that Meditek faces is a lack of communication/coordination from the hospital staff. Sometimes, the machines that are supposed to be “fixed” are in use at the hospital so Meditek goes back empty-handed because it would not be feasible to move the patients to another machine such as a bed, EKG machine, etc. This might be because of a lack of usable machines at the clinics/hospitals which they cannot afford to leave idle. Sometimes the engineers are on a vacation and cannot look over our work causing Meditek to leave without performing their duties. Luckily we did not face any such issues this week!

Since we were in the beautiful province of Guanacaste, we all decided to tour it a little bit after work! Katy, Hugo (field engineer), and I visited Parque Nacional Volcan Tenorio in Alajuela to see the breathtaking Rio Celeste. The river is the bluest river you can imagine. It actually looks like the rivers in the drawings you made as a kid. Katy and I were very unprepared for the hike though, we did not pack our tennis shoes and wore our work shoes for the whole hike. With our luck of course, we got rained on the whole time, and I mean RAIN. It was pouring the whole time and we were drenched, but we decided to keep moving forward and finished the whole hike. We saw the waterfall, the lake, and the point in the river where the color changes. The blue color is caused because of a mineral composed of oxygen, silicon, and aluminum present in the river. The color of the water is actually clear but sunlight refracts off the mineral in the water and appears blue to our eyes. The peaceful hike in the rainforest and the beauty of the river made up for the downpour of rain, and also made up for the million stairs we had to climb up and down to see the waterfall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The clinic we visited today was located to the west of the Gulf of Nicoya (I included a map for those that are geographically challenged). The ride back to San Jose from the hospital would take about 6 hours because we would be driving along the gulf. However, a more sane and efficient solution is to take a ferry to Puntarenas (the east of the gulf) from Paquera (the west of the gulf), so we did! The ferry only takes an hour to cross the gulf meaning the travel time to San Jose would be cut in half. The ferry was huge, huge enough to fit 30+ cars and hundreds of passengers. I enjoyed the view and getting sunburnt because once again I was not prepared for this adventure. Nevertheless, I am very grateful for the opportunities that Meditek provides for us both in a professional and travel setting. Katy and I even made a little video describing our experience at the internship so far! The video was shown at a Meditek all-employee meeting, and everyone was very impressed that we spoke in Spanish the whole time. Little did they know that we google translated the whole script, hehe, but I will take the pat on the back.

Link to Meditek video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q7sHsJShiQyV6YPUubEUJdjaocwu8ylo/view?usp=sharing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and I would like to add a new animal to the list of new animals we have been discovering here. The list is really short (just cotis and coatis) but let’s add another -tis to the list: Agoutis. We saw an agouti outside one of our hotels and it looked like a squirrel without a tail that walks weirdly. I, unfortunately, forgot to take a picture but hopefully, my description imprinted an image in your head.

Well, I think I am going to call it a night! Tomorrow the GMI group is hiking the Irazu volcano which means I have another early morning! Of course, you will hear more on this next week.

Till next time,

Jhalak M,

p.s CHECK OUT THE MONKEY VIDEO: