Engineering World Health Summer Institute

My experience on the Engineering World Health Summer Institute in Tanzania was life changing. I chose my degree of Biomedical Engineering with the original intent to use it as a precursor to medical school. I wanted to be a doctor so that I could join programs like Doctors Without Borders. Throughout my undergraduate career, though, I started realizing I just really liked the electrical and software side of equipment -- I didn't necessarily want to go to med school anymore, even though I was still interested in global health. When I found out about this program, it was just up my alley -- travel, engineering, global health, learning a new language, experiencing a new culture, and helping out those less fortunate than me. It turned out to be all that and more!

In the first month of the program, I lived in a homestay with a Tanzanian family and another program participant from Denmark. So I learned not only about Tanzanian culture, but Danish as well! Our Tanzanian homestay family ran a day care out of their home, so there were always tons of kids around to play with and practice our Swahili.

Each day, we went to TCDC, a training center campus about 20 min outside of Arusha. In the mornings we had 4 hours of Swahili lessons -- with lots of breaks for "chai", or tea (chai is delicious, btw!). We ate lunch at TCDC and then had our afternoon technical trainings. Lectures were given each day by our EWH instructor, who works as a biomedical engineer in hospitals in Peru. He taught us about different types of medical equipment, how they work, and how they commonly break in the developing world. Then we had labs taught by our EWH TA. Before the SI, I had never even soldered anything before. But after we had gone through all the labs, I was comfortable troubleshooting circuit components and making my own variable power supply. We also had field visits during the first month, where the whole group went with the instructor and TA to a nearby local hospital and fixed equipment together. It was really helpful to have our first exposure to the equipment be with our instructor and as a group, so that we weren't thrown into our second month work blindly.

In the second month, we were broken into groups of 2 or 3 and assigned to volunteer as biomedical equipment technicians(BMETs) in hospitals around the area. I was assigned in a group of 3, living in Arusha and working at St. Elizabeth hospital. Some students lived in Moshi (where Kilimanjaro is) or other smaller towns. We went to work each weekday. At our hospital, there was a local BMET that we worked with. Most hospitals didn't have any technicians. Our BMET was really friendly -- kind of shy at first and he didn't really speak any English, but throughout the month we became friends. I still keep in touch with him every now and then via email.

Our daily schedule varied, but generally we walked around the hospital introducing ourselves to various departments and asked them if they had any equipment to fix. A lot of times the nurses in that department would know about broken equipment being stored in a closet someplace. Then we would take that device back to our BMET's workshop (sometimes he worked with us but often we did separate projects), figure out what the problem was, and start searching for the cause. Sometimes it was something really obvious and easy to fix, like a blown fuse. Other times it could take days just to identify the problem! If we needed spare parts, we would make a list and then every few days we would take a shopping trip into the city. Now, buying spare electronic parts in Tanzania is not like ordering them from Digi Key or shopping at Home Depot. The stores are usually just a small gated storefront tended by a shopkeeper and a giant pile of parts. You have to describe to the shopkeeper what you need (sometimes in Swahili!) and then they search for it for you. Because of this, it could sometimes take days just to find the right resistor. But it was all quite an adventure.

We repaired many pieces of medical equipment in that month -- about 80% of what we touched. Centrifuges, anesthesia machines, ventilators, dental equipment, suction machines, lamps, oxygen concentrates, autoclaves, infant warmers, patient monitors, ECG machines, hospital beds, fans, blood pressure cuffs, even teapots! Nearly all of the equipment in these hospitals is donated from some western country, and when it breaks, there is no service plan to repair it. The most rewarding part of it was going back into a department a couple days after returning a piece of equipment and seeing it in use. Two days ago, the neonatal ward didn't have a working bilirubin light, and now it does. Because of us. That was crazy!

It wasn't all work. On the weekends, we took trips to local hot springs, coffee farms, artisan markets, incredible safari adventures, and the most grueling but rewarding multiday hike I've ever completed -- Mt. Meru volcano. We used local transport -- mostly little "dala dalas" to get everywhere. You see some very interesting sights on these jam packed microbuses! Tanzania is a beautiful country with a rich cultural presence. I am so lucky to have been and experienced it in such an immersive way.

The EWH Summer Institute made me realize that I can make a tangible impact on developing world healthcare as an engineer. It's not just doctors that can save lives. Saving equipment is saving lives too. I decided to focus my BME degree on medical devices, with another global health study abroad program after the SI and several other public health oriented courses back at school. I hope to one day work on designing medical devices suitable for the developing world.

There are other EWH SI programs as well. Some of my friends participated in programs in Nicaragua and Rwanda, and they too had incredible experiences. I highly recommend this program to any engineer passionate about hands-on technical repairs, global health, and cultural immersion.