Participating students are plucked from college campuses throughout the United States and Canada and transplanted to developing nations like Nicaragua and El Salvador for a bit of culture shock and a lifetime of changed perspective. Modern equipment, often taken for granted in US hospitals, is in short supply in countries where operating with interrupted electricity and other such challenges are everyday occurrences.

University of Minnesota student Ben Schnitz works alongside a young patient at a hospital in Nicaragua.

Le (Lucy) He, a Duke University senior in biomedical engineering, was shocked upon her first visit to her adopted hospital in Rosales, El Salvador. She saw that most people in beds were not hooked up to monitors and that the lights in the operating room would flicker on and off throughout the day.

“We made a big impact by repairing fetal monitors for our hospital’s labor and delivery room,” said He. “From the moment we entered our hospital and saw the conditions, I knew my summer experience wasn’t going to be about textbook engineering.”

The five Duke students who participated in the program said they felt that their efforts to analyze, repair, and install health care equipment affected the lives of countless hospital patients.

“My hospital in Jinotepe, Nicaragua, had 22 infant cardiac monitors that were not being used for various reasons,” said Avery Capone, a recent Duke graduate. “Plus, there were numerous defibrillators, electrocardiograms, and pulse oximeters that needed repair. Some were missing parts, others lacked instructions. The amount of work was infinite, so I salvaged the good pieces, got them to the hospital floor in working condition,and instructed the staff nurses on maintenance.”Capone said his experience was “illuminating,” pointing to the language barriers and unstructured workdays as major elements of the challenge.

EWH is a nonprofit organization for students and professionals. Through the program, engineers, biologists, physicists, and chemists are able to apply their skills in challenging international environments to improve health care technology and assist individuals in poor communities, said Robert Malkin, a professor in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke and director of EWH.

“The Summer Institute enables engineering and science students to use their passion and skills in underserved, foreign hospitals,” Malkin said. “This is a uniquely challenging program that requires students’ committed effort to study, learn on the go, and train others in the field. It tests students’ abilities to perform under unfamiliar conditions.”Last summer’s program participants consisted of 17 students—15 men and 2 women.

For more information about EWH, visit www.ewh.org.

“We are delighted to have graduated our 100th student and look forward to a continued close relationship with the biomedical and clinical engineering communities in developing and providing relevant and effective medical-imaging service training classes,” said G Wayne Moore, president and CEO of Sonora.

The classes are provided monthly and were created in response to the growing number of hospital-based technical personnel with increasing responsibilities for managing medical-imaging assets.