Monday I went to the technical service room at Meditek and they were running a test on a GE Cardiosoft Tonoport VI that is used to check blood pressure (BP). They wanted to make sure that the device would record the BP for 24 hours and would do the checks at the right times. In the afternoon I went to Hospital de Los Mujeres to work on an autoclave. I used an autoclave for my research last year to sterilize equipment and prep materials, but I have never seen how it works. They explained all of the different components and where the problems usually occur. After cleaning the temperature sensors, we ran some tests and everything went smoothly.
Outside of an autoclave
Tuesday through Thursday, I joined Keilyn at Hospital Calderon Guardia to help her with a big maintenance project on the pulmonary beds and vitals signs monitors. We did everything from checking parts, cleaning, running simulations, fixing the blowers inside the beds, changing filters, and more. It was a lot of work but it was really rewarding to see it all and check things off the list.
On Friday I went back to the same hospital but this time we worked on four GE Carescape R860 ventilators. This was my first time seeing it so the engineers explained the required tests that needed to be done for the preventative maintenance. There were a lot of steps so it took a long time. On the fourth ventilator, there was a problem that said the releasing valve was open. We swapped out parts one by one to find the issue but it was never resolved. We eventually had to conclude that the machine was out of service.
Pulmonary bed, inner components of the bed, and ventilator
Things I have learned
- Some autoclaves have two doors. The non-sterile equipment enters from one side and after the cycle is complete, it is removed from the other side
- Medical air is a gaseous mixture of nitrogen and oxygen that is used for patient’s to breathe with.
- Some of the animals I saw in Spanish: perezosos = sloths, monos = monkeys, cangrejos = crabs, iguanas = iguanas
- The beaches in the park close at 3pm because the tide gets too high and becomes dangerous.
I took a trip to Manuel Antonio!! Some of the other students were going on a trip there with their coworker so this weekend it was only JJ, Jamali, and I. To save some money, we decided to use the coach buses to travel there and back. We got up super early and after a 4 hour bus ride, we got there around 10:30 am. After some food, we went straight to the beach. It was rainy all day but the water was still really nice and the waves were fun. For dinner I got mahi mahi and tried a cas smoothie and both were delicious!
The next morning we went to Manuel Antonio National Park to hike the trails. Almost immediately we saw lots of white-faced monkeys and I was so excited (monkeys are my favorite animal)!! After several trails, we got to see some sloths and iguanas! They were so fun to see and we took so many pictures. After lunch we went to Manuel Antonio Beach which was beautiful. The weather was perfect and all of the trees surrounding the beach made it look like we were in a movie. We had a lot of fun swimming in the waves and trying to bodysurf them until the tide got too high and we kept hitting the sand bank. On the way out of the park we were lucky enough to see a sloth up close! It was really cute and was acting super shy. I was so happy with the day from seeing all of the animals, especially since I didn’t get to see a sloth the first time I visited Costa Rica.
We took the bus back to San Jose and we didn’t return until 10pm. I was super tired but it was so worth the trip. This week I will be attending the incubator training with some other engineers and I am looking forward to it!
