Arrival:
I arrived in Costa Rica 10 days before the program and immediately left from the airport to go rafting on the Pacurare river. As I continued to Arenal and Drakes Bay, I was struck by how welcoming all of the people were. While I was used to traveling internationally, locals who are not in the tourism industry harbor some disdain towards visitors in the primarily European places I have visited. In Costa Rica, on the other hand, I noticed that all of the locals were very receptive and welcomed tourists. Upon returning to San Jose, I united with the other students in the program. I built friendships, got used to the costa rican level of timeliness, and settled in to the trendy hostel Selina which we would call home.
Needs Finding Workshop:
My needs-finding workshop experience began with a visit to the national children’s Hospital. We got to visit different departments and observe patients in the PT department. We noted a few different needs such as adjustable orthosis and wheelchairs for growing patients. Next, we visited the national trauma center. We talked with patients and saw many of their state-of-the-art facilities. We noted they had many needs in terms of making external fixers more comfortable for recovering patients. Next up was hospital CIMA. We got to see the increased level of focus on comfort in private hospitals in Costa Rica. We noticed that while the facilities were nice, there was a lack of cleanliness and we noticed many grungy tiles and bugs around the hospital. Our final stop was the geriatric hospital. There we got to conduct observations in their physical therapy department as well as witness a few surgeries. We discovered a few needs including exhaustion relief techniques for surgeons.
Medical Innovation Workshop:
The medical device BootCamp was interesting and exhausting. My project was to build a solution to detect diabetic foot ulcers in early stages and rescue risk of complication and amputation. We landed on using a passive temperature sensitive mat that is scannable by a phone app using image processing and neural networks to identify hot spots. Overall, I am pleased with how our project turned out and excited to continue with the program in Costa Rica!
