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he way I look at engineering, it solves the problems we face
in the world today. The answer to “What existing technology
can be made better?” is everything. Our imagination has no bounds
as to how many new things it can come up with everyday.
There’s a contrary opinion which states that we have realised
the maximum potential possible in terms of innovation. This can
be backed by Gossen’s first law of diminishing marginal utility. For
example, there are so many Android apps that any new app you
think of has already been made by someone else and exists in the
market. However, it is surprising that in medical technology, we are
eons away from reaching this stage!
I was exposed to this harsh reality when I got the opportunity to
attend the ReDx (Redefining Diagnostics) MIT India Health Tech
workshop at IIT Bombay, co-hosted by Tata Center for Technology and Design, MIT Media Lab and IIT Bombay. It was a 7 day
program, from January 26 to February 1. When I found out about
the workshop through a friend, the deadline to apply had already
passed. I had just decided to pursue an MS in biomedical engineering, and the sudden materialization of this event in health technology seemed like a dream come true. I had nothing to lose and I
thought I’d apply anyway. In a few days, I got an acceptance mail!
At first I was shocked, since the application involved mentioning
my GPA as well, which, to be quite frank, is mediocre. So I thought,
“Not many people must’ve applied, great for me!”
Upon reaching Mumbai, I found out how wrong I was. There
were more than a thousand applicants, and they chose a hundred
(including engineering students, design students and a few medical students) to participate. At the inauguration, until things were
ready, the Google Glass was passed around for us to play with! The
experience was exhilarating from the very beginning. We were introduced to the fifteen MIT instructors and the ten Harvard doctors
who would be working with us throughout the week. Twenty-five
projects were put on the table. Introductions to the problem statements were presented. We had to travel by bus that day, and we were
told not to sit next to someone we already knew. This was such an
awesome way for all of us to open up to each other. The top brass
from Harvard and MIT actually started genuine conversations with
us – it was amazing! Later that day, we went to Hinduja hospital (one
of the biggest and most research oriented hospitals in Mumbai) and
the doctors there told us about problems that they face in general,
and the changes they would like to see in the current system. It was
astonishing to hear about some obvious errors in the instrumentation that doctors use. The doctors made a ‘wish list’ for us – I found
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By Pooja M
my pen just scribbling of its own accord on my notepad, and taking down specifications of what the doctors needed; this had never
happened to me before. Around thirty-five items were put on to the
wish list. The interesting thing was that about 30% to 45% of these
things didn’t even seem worthy of being on a “wish” list to us engineers. We affirmed that we could quite easily solve some of those
problems. Others would definitely take many months of research
and expertise. We then had a tour of the departments of the hospital which would be pertinent to our project. We also met patients,
some of whom were regularly hospitalized and who wanted to share
their opinion on difficulties they were facing and things that could
be changed. The session at the hospital was extremely inspiring for
everyone in that room, so much so that Mrs. Hinduja (the main trustee of the hospital) got an official permission for a research laboratory on the Hinduja hospital premises, just for engineering students
like us, for research in health technology. She then told us that she
would even give each of us guaranteed jobs at Hinduja! Day 1 was
as emotional, touching and heart-warming as it could have been.
The next five days passed by in a whir. We didn’t know when it
was day or when it was night. All teams were continuously working
in the lab in the biomedical engineering department at IIT Bombay.
There was a constant buzz of action and energy at all times. My
project was to come up with a non-invasive method to measure
the hydration content in blood. As of now, there is no measure for
hydration, unless you do a blood test, which gives you the concentration of solutes in blood, and not hydration content directly. I
joined the team working on this project since I was already working
on something similar back at college. The team was called mHealth,
and had 4 projects under it, mine (HydroSpect) being one of these.
On the day we were to begin the work, we returned to the lab after
lunch to see that the whole lab had been set up for us with everything we could possibly need. There were 3D printers in the lab and
pulse oximeters at all stations of the mHealth team for us to tinker
with! It was heaven for an engineer.
Throughout the week, we had interaction sessions with entrepreneurs in healthcare, NGOs working on healthcare in rural areas,
and patients themselves. On one of the days Ratan Tata himself
came to look through all our projects! Each of these sessions was
extremely inspiring. On the last day, each team presented their prototype to all the instructors and doctors, after which we had demonstrations open to the public and press.
What was remarkable about this workshop was that we literally had everything we needed. All resources were at the tip of our