Last month, Melissa Hendricks, senior BMET III of St. Luke’s (Jacksonville, Fla.) and Merrill Brown, TriMedx Foundation‘s mission projects manager, left for St. Boniface Hospital in Fond des Blancs, Haiti.
When they arrived on January 31, five students were waiting for them, ready to learn. The Haitian students were selected by St. Boniface and Hôpital Sacré Coeur in Milot as a part of TriMedx Foundation’s Mission Lifecycle Program, designed to establish clinical engineering departments in each hospital.
The program’s goal is to keep the hospital’s medical equipment up and running on a consistent basis. To that end, the program will cover medical terminology, enabling hospital staffers to respond to equipment failures and communicate the make, model and nature of the failure.
Melissa instructed the students on AC/DC power currents, use of a voltage meter, and why proper input voltage is important to equipment operations. Following classroom exercises included included cleaning and learning the name of each device, how it is used by a doctor, and familiarity with tools of the trade.
In the afternoons, Melissa showed the students how to perform repair and preventative maintenance rounds, ensuring each device remains in working condition.
Next, Gary Lindquist of Genesys Regional Medical Center in Michigan will serve on the March Mission Lifecycle trip to Hôpital Sacré Coeur in Milot. Gary will reinforce prior instruction and present each student with his own bag of tools.
If you’d like to volunteer for a mission trip, we invite you to read about upcoming opportunities here. Thanks again for your support!
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