Lights Out on Equipment Repair

We woke up to refreshingly cool air with some cloud cover in hermosa Antigua. A few of us watched the sunrise while running stair repeats up the hill at Cerro de la Cruz, while others worked out on the rooftop of Casa Mia overlooking the city.

Hospital Nacional Pedro de Bethancourt

After grabbing a quick breakfast, we hopped in our beloved beige bus to make our way to our third and final workplace, Hospital Nacional Pedro de Bethancourt (PdB). Unlike the other hospitals where we worked this week, PdB is a government-funded public hospital with even more limited resources. Dim is an appropriate adjective to describe PdB - dim lighting, dim conditions, and dim hopes. Still, dedicated people serve there, working hard to provide healthcare.

If at first you don't succeed...
try, try again

After finishing inventorying and repairing over 100 pieces of equipment at Obras Sociales de Hermano Pedro on Thursday, the BME students arrived at Pedro de Bethancourt Friday morning surprised to find fewer pieces of equipment to fix here. With several examination and infant warmer lights to fix, the Vanderbilt students paired off to tackle the necessary repairs. Jorie and Michael were tasked with an examination light that would not turn on due to a faulty socket and shorted connections within the lampholder. After taking apart the socket and testing the connections within the lamp, they found that a trip to the local hardware store was necessary to find a functioning socket for the lamp. With a new socket incorporated, the lamp was ready to be tested again for functionality. While the bulb itself was able to turn on, Michael quickly found that the switch within the socket was very weak and needed further repair. A few hours and extra parts later, they were able to fully repair the socket and rewire the lamp to have a single pole switch that is more reliable and robust for the hospital setting.

Jorie, Michael, and Dr. P testing continuity in their lamp socket

Zach and Hunter melting heat shrink onto a wire

Zach and Hunter were tasked with repairing a bilirubin light, which is a bright blue light used to treat jaundice in newborn infants. This light, which was built by a previous Vanderbilt group on their trip, had several issues including frayed wires, unlit LEDs and an unreliable transformer. Zach and Hunter first resolved an unlit strip of LED lights by identifying the burnt out bulb and soldering in a wire to bypass it, returning function to the other LEDs in the strip. Next, they removed the frayed wire and soldered the two ends together, then covered it in heat shrink and electrical tape. Lastly, they added a spacer to the transformer to stop the internal parts from moving and superglued the cover on. We successfully fixed this light and all pieces of medical equipment we worked with today!

Christia testing repaired laryngoscopes

Aidan and Antonio replacing blown-out diodes for a bilirubin light

Stephanie and Cerie screwing electrical wires into their light socket

After wrapping up at Pedro de Bethancourt, the team made its way to Fonda de la Calle Real for another authentic Antiguan meal. The team celebrated two birthdays tonight -- Professor Adams (March 7th) and Stephanie (March 2nd), complete with cheesecake, party horns, and candles! The celebrations continued at night with games and conversation.

Stephanie and Dr. Adams blowing out birthday candles!