After a weekend of meeting classmates and learning about a new country, Monday we started our course about clinical needs with Dr. Howard. First, we had an introductory class with Dr. Howard where she guided us on how to perform observations in a hospital to find needs. I learned that is not only about looking for the usage of medical devices but also learning to observe people’s gestures and body language to find actual needs that a hospital may have. Our first clinical experience with my group was in UCR dentistry, in which Dr. Hernandez gave us a full tour of the facilities and the different procedures they perform. At first, we were very lost because dentistry is a topic that in my case never took a class or learned much in my four years in college. However, as we saw more devices I could observe more similarities with the ones that I am used to working with. I also realized that the dentistry part of bioengineering is a topic that I would like to learn a little bit more about and find a way to make patients and dentists more comfortable when doing a procedure. One of the main observations that I had was that the position of the dentist when reaching the patient’s mouth is very uncomfortable so when performing a long procedure there is going to be a lot of postural fatigue. Additionally, we were watching mostly students perform the procedures so there were some mistakes being made like forgetting to put safety glasses on the patient. It was also cool to see how they build a crown with scanners and put them in the patient however one of the dentists explained to me that when putting the crown on the patient there is a risk of misplacing them because of the mirror effect, something that in my opinion can be easily prevented.
On Tuesday, we had the chance to do our observations in the Geriatric hospital in which Javier the engineer of the institute gave us a tour of the facilities. First, we checked the rehab rooms for patients with different kinds of injuries and the doctors gave us a brief explanation of how the equipment is used. It was very cool to talk to providers and patients that gave us a lot of feedback on the pros and cons of the electromagnetic therapy they use to rehab some injuries. Then, we went to see different devices they use in the general care rooms such as defibrillators and vital sign readers. Something very surprising about these devices is how many battery issues they have and how expensive is to replace a battery. Then, we had a tour of the OR where we saw anesthesia devices and cataract surgeries being performed. Some observation I had was that as a biomedical engineer, I was just focusing on the equipment but there are aspects of surgery rooms such as the positioning of the AC in the room that can affect the success of a clinical procedure. Finally, we went to the optometrist and we saw laser and ultrasound measurement readers being used. We were able to see and learn about the limitations of each device and places where they can be improved.
On Wednesday, we did our observation in the OR of the Clinica Biblica. In my opinion, this was by far the best experience so far because we were able to see different surgeries being performed such as hernias and tumor removals. Clinica Biblica is a private institution so the budget was clearly higher for medical equipment in comparison to the other institutions that we attended. We were able to see anesthesia towers in use at the beginning of a tumor removal surgery and the use of a vital sign reader throughout each procedure. I spend a lot of time watching the hernia surgery which was very cool to watch because I could see everything that was happening on the screens. Some observations that I had was that there were many interventions during the procedure to clean the endoscope lens and they used a measuring tape to measure some distances inside the body which in my opinion can cause a little bit of inaccuracy. In general, I had a great time doing observations, something that was very new to me. I had some prior experience working in hospitals but was never part of watching live surgeries. Also, it was great to help my group translate however it was hard to translate some technical wording.