Although modern medical equipment is extremely complex, basic challenges continue to prevent proper operation in low-resource hospitals.
Issues such as damaged cords, clogged filters, or even blown fuses can result in equipment being stored away or discarded. Oftentimes, newly donated equipment sits unused, either because healthcare staff are not sure how to use the device or the manual is not in the local language, among other reasons. Other times, more complex problems require advanced techniques, such as replacing burnt out resistors that have been damaged by a power surge.
The EWH Institutes involve intensive training that prepares STEM students for improving equipment conditions in our partner hospitals. The course and lab materials were developed by Dr. Robert Malkin’s Developing World Healthcare Technology Lab and are continually supported by the EWH BMET Library.
Once training is complete, participants work with our partner hospitals, providing technical and engineering support.
In addition, each team completes a secondary project. After speaking with staff and doing inventories to assess a hospital's needs, the team must design a project to meet the need. Past teams have purchased spare parts for their hospitals, built play areas for pediatric wards, translated instruction manuals for equipment, built workshops for local technicians, installed sinks inside the hospital for nurses, built clotheslines for a hospital's laundry, hung mosquito nets over all the beds in a patient ward, built benches for waiting patients and family members, installed hand sanitizer stations, secured loose oxygen tanks, and much more.
For more details see each program's report:
2022 Program Reports: Guatemala January
2022 Program Reports: Dominican Republic - Guatemala - Rwanda - Nepal
2021 Program Reports: Virtual Winter Institute
2020 Program Reports: Cambodia - Uganda January - Guatemala January - Virtual Innovation Exchange - Remote Summer Institute
2019 Program Reports: Cambodia - Uganda January - Guatemala January - Dominican Republic - Rwanda - Uganda - Tanzania - Nepal
2018 Program Reports: Cambodia - Uganda January - Guatemala January - Dominican Republic - Guatemala Summer - Rwanda - Uganda - Tanzania - Nepal - Mongolia
2017 Program Reports: Nicaragua - Tanzania - Rwanda - Uganda - Nepal
Each year, our participants document their experience in pictures. Want to know more about what participants do on our programs?
Check out photos from past program here!
You can also watch videos on our Youtube channel.