Hi again from Costa Rica, this week has been full of many changes and new experiences in my field engineer internship for Meditek. Monday, was my first day at Meditek with Emily. First, we met Pablo who introduced us to the company and gave us an overview of all the devices they work with like smart beds, anesthesia machines, and vital sign readers. Then, he gave us an ID and shirts to use at work which was very nice and made my mornings easier. Then, he introduced us to our coworkers who gave us a very warm welcome to the company. After being presented, Pablo assigned Lucia as our mentor for the week. Our first task was scanning reports for Lucia in the printer and sending them to her via email. After we finish our work in the office, we took an uber with Lucia to the Calderon Guardia Hospital for our first field expereince. Our first experience was more about learning the different preventive mantainances for smart beds. Lucia taught us how to open the beds and clean all the dust that can affect the movement functions of the device. Then, we learned about the anestheasia machines and how to test them for any leaks in the circuit of gases. It was a lot of fun to use prior class knowledge in the field to fix different devices. However, I learned a lot about how difficult is to work as a field engineer in hospitals. It is always a struggle to find empty beds for preventive mantainance; most of the beds are already being used by patients in the intensive care department. Also, the first day we had the chance of going to almost every department in the hospital which help us getting an idea of the everyday tasks of a field engineer.
Tuesday, was very similar to Monday tasks, a lot of Hill-Rom bed mantainance. We met with Lucia at 8:00 am in the Calderon Guardia Hospital. Then, we started the hunt of smart beds that were not being used and were missing preventive mantainance. We had the chance to open beds with Emily and do a full preventive mantainance. In my opinion, the most challenging part of this preventive mantiance is learning when a part needs replacement but I figure that this can get easier with more experrience in the field. Lunch was great because we went to a Taco Tuesday promotion with Lucia and Emily. After Lunch, we went back to th Calderon Guardia to check on Anesthesia Machines. We went to a room full of broken anesthesia machines which made it very fun because we could try to troubleshoot by moving parts around. However, we could only fix one anesthesia machines most of them were very old versions. Wednesday, was a very short day because most of the beds that were missing mantainance were being used by patients. So, we checked a couple of beds with Lucia and did some reports of the replacements that we need to order. Thursday, was full of aneshesia machine testings and troubleshooting. We went back to the room full of damaged anesthesia machines because Lucia had the task of figuring out the parts needed to fix them. It was great because I had the chance to open them and check all the components. One of the anesthesia machines was missing the whole electrical systems which was very weird probably it was taken to fix other anesthesia machine.
Friday, was the longest day so far because we went to the Calderon Guardia, Gereatric and Children’s Hospital to pick up mantainance reports. Then, we had a meeting with everybody in the company about the goals of the month of June. I learned so much in this meeting about the business part of the device industry and how profitable it can be which is something I didnt learn much in my previous experiences. Also, the manager played a scene of Avengers to motivate everybody to sell more medical equipment. Finally, I went to play soccer with my coworkers which was a lot of fun and I got to meet more of the poeple that work in Meditek. Im very excited for next week as I will be in a work trip from Monday to Friday.
