Dr. Kathleen Sienko gave a talk on Wednesday about her work in developing medical devices that can be used in underdeveloped countries with limited resources.
She began by explaining the limitations that developing countries face in terms of utilizing medical devices. The hospitals in developing countries often lack spare parts for the device, trained technicians, power, and manuals. So it is very important to design a device that is very intuitive, cheap, efficient, and work under scarce resources.
She talked about how male circumcision is a part of a ceremony in African communities and is known to reduce HIV rates but have a very high complication rate due to excessive bleeding and infections. Her team reached out to the African communities and communicated with the medical professionals in order to develop a safe device for circumcision. Dr. Sienko also talked about the lack of blood banks in African communities and how it can affect women who lose a lot of blood while giving birth. To develop a device that could re-transfuse the lost blood, her team of students developed a syringe-like device that could collect the blood and remove the clots for re-transfusion.
It was very interesting to realize that medical devices that hospitals use in the US is simply not efficient for use in developing countries. It is really difficult to think about these things during our day-to-day lives, so the seminar opened by eyes to medicine in developing countries. Also, I think it is very interesting how people from many different disciplines and backgrounds can cooperate to develop these devices that can aid the patients across the globe.
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