One of the really neat things about this internship actually comes from Sarah, Emily, and Catherine’s internship at the Polytechnic University of Malawi(affectionately known as the Poly), which is right next door to the hospital. The Poly is starting a biomedical engineering program in the fall, and Sarah, Emily, and Catherine are collaborating with current faculty and students there this summer to work on ideas for design project ideas and prototyping frameworks for the new curriculum. (Check out their blogs linked above if you’re interested in more of their day-to-day work!)
It’s been great working in Queens and getting to know the staff members, nurses, and clinicians here, but the collaboration with the Poly gives all five of us from Rice a unique chance to better understand and experience Malawi from the perspective of college-aged students living in Blantyre. Christina, Andrew, Charles, and Francis are all rising fifth-year engineering students in mechanical and electrical engineering. This opportunity for cultural exchange has been so helpful for learning more about Malawian life on several levels.
Last week, we had them all over to our house to do an American-Malawian exchange meal, and the menu was quite extensive! On the Malawian side, it included nsima, the staple starch here; a mixed vegetable dish of fresh tomatoes and rape greens; green beans cooked with carrots and tomatoes; and of course, Nali, a Malawian hot sauce also known as “Africa’s hottest peri-peri sauce”. On the American side, it included peanut-butter (and/or Nutella) banana pancakes with baked apples and cinnamon. We might have been a bit ambitious on the amount of dishes, but between the nine of us, there wasn’t much left at the end of the night!
But the exchange goes much further beyond just a meal shared here or there- the exchange of ideas and engineering expertise has been incredibly fruitful as well. For example, Tanya and I prepared the Incubaby project prior to leaving Houston, but our electronic components weren’t performing the way we wanted them to by the time we departed. However, after just one afternoon at the Poly, Christina, Andrew, Charles, Francis, and Sarah were able to make great progress with the troubleshooting. And not only did they have great technical expertise in helping us with the electronic components, but they had thoughtful feedback on how realistic the design and materials would be for use in Malawian hospitals.
Perhaps what is most exciting about the energy and enthusiasm of the Poly students is the potential for a longer-term collaboration with Queens in which students can contribute their engineering experience to hospital technology development and maintenance while gaining valuable practical experience outside of the classroom. There is a department at Queens called Physical Assets Management (PAM) that deals with repairing and maintaining all hospital equipment at Queens and at 6 surrounding district hospitals. The nine of us actually have a meeting set up with PAM later today, so we’re really looking forward to exploring the potential of a more involved PAM-Poly relationship in the near future. I’ll be sure and give an update on how the meeting goes in a later post!