A typical GMI-takes-Costa-Rica-weekend consists of an exhausting Saturday exploring local beaches/mountains/jungles followed by an extremely relaxing Sunday drinking coffee and eating Pinto Gallo sitting outside and watching the World Cup. The week, however, is much less relaxing. This past week was my first while working at Establishment Labs, and I would argue that EL is one of the most (if not the most) patriotic companies in Costa Rica. From the very first interaction on our first day, everyone has been extremely welcoming and eager to show us how incredible their work is. Establishment Labs is a high-tech medical device and aesthetics company -born and built here in Costa Rica. They take pride in the fact that they are the first Costa Rican-based company to design, develop, manufacture and market their class III devices on the competitive global stage.
I, along with Christine, work at the Research, Development and Innovation department (RDI). Unlike Christine, however, I am working under the research portfolio. I’m finding my work quite interesting, as it concerns a healthy combination of my background (Anatomy and Cell Biology) and clinical regulatory processes found in the industry. The most exhilarating part is that I am able to work with very qualified individuals in the medical device design field who have a “learn by doing” mentality. After the Establishment interns and I had our extensive tours and entrance interviews with various departments within the company, I sat down with my supervisors and went over the timeline for our intended projects. In an effort to get up to speed with the current propriety research, I’ve started out analyzing and summarizing data concerning our products. I feel like I would have been able to understand the scope of the work here at EL if I had simply shadowed one of the RDI engineers, but that would have taken weeks longer than I have. We only have 7 weeks of our internship, which seems like quite a bit, but there is so much to do!
Of my many personal and professional goals for the summer, and one I am most excited about, is being able to hold a conversation in Spanish concerning medical device design. The only times I have taken Spanish lessons were in kindergarten, 6th grade and 7th grade…and all other language study has been in either French or Mandarin. This is going to be another fun lesson in “learn by doing”, as Establishment is a Costa Rican company, primarily employing Costa Ricans, whose native language is Spanish. I am very much looking forward to understanding what the World Cup announcers are saying!
As I first mentioned, GMI is a healthy balance of work and play. This weekend we hiked up Volcan Erazu and spent quite of a bit of time slipping in volcanic mud and trying our best not to fall into the giant volcanic craters. We were over 10,000 ft, and the environment starkly contrasted with our last trip to the Pacific Coast. The climate here is something else, as there may be a torrential downpour in one area, while it’s completely sunny 50 metres away. Luckily for us, we were in the clouds (and not the rain) when hiking the volcano -so much so that it looked like a science fiction movie. As for the rest of the cohort, they seem to be learning a ton at their jobs, even though each person is doing something very different. Judging by the way we act around one another, our co-workers think we’ve known each other for years. To their credit, we’ve been cramming years worth of bonding into late nights and early mornings, from 6:00a bus rides to 9:57p ice-cream runs (they close at 10:00!!!). We’re officially on our own this coming week, as our directors are back in Houston already, but I have a feeling we’ll be just fine!
