Hola chicos y chicas!
I hope everyone has been doing well. I have finally made my way to Costa Rica, and this week went through a very unique and memorable clinical needs finding boot camp! We first had a quick introduction to what clinical needs finding is and why it is useful in the medical technology field. Long story short – you first have to identify a need and understand the need before coming up with the solution for it. There’s no point in making a solution for a non-existing problem right?? Then came the fun part. In order to come up with a clinical need, we went to several different hospitals around the country and observed doctors perform their daily activities. From consultations all the way to performing surgeries, we were able to observe everything they did with their patients. Whether it be as simple as their medication recommendations, or as complicated as a pacemaker implantation procedure, the doctors were extremely nice and very receptive to us all. Throughout these days, I was an observer at the Hospital Mexico, Hospital Nacional de los Niños, and the Hospital San Vicente de Paul in Heredia. Obviously we were not allowed to take pictures so i don’t have any to share with you guys, however the Hospital San Vicente de Paul is relatively new and has an extremely modern operation room for their cardiac intervention surgeries.
Besides observing doctors being doctors, I also went out with my team to eat dinner around Aranjuez in San Jose, and here are some pictures of my past couple of meals here!
At the end of our observations we all came back together and began sharing everything we found, and then categorized each observation into large groups. The second half of this week we will begin our medical innovation boot camp – taking our clinical needs we found and learning how to innovate a solution and have it commercialized! I have only been in Costa Rica for a couple of days but I am very excited to be here for the whole summer, learning more about medical technology as well as visiting fun parts of the country! See you guys later 🙂