From Davinci to "The Wrenchie"

The picture above is me servicing a 1.2 million dollar surgical robot that allows the surgeon to remove the natural tremors from his or her hand to perform life saving surgeries... and for the icing on the cake, they can do this remotely...

I spent over a decade of my life working in the healthcare sector.   I have always been a bit of a technology geek, and always had an interest in how things work.   In healthcare, I held a wide array of positions from working in the Endoscopy Clinic assisting with Polypectomies, and even performing lifesaving procedures during gastric and colonic bleeding cases.

  I eventually worked into the Medical Intensive Care Unit where I was an active member of the Code Blue Team and Rapid Response Team.   I started to lose interest in hands on healthcare and became more interested in servicing the equipment that takes care of people.   Believe it or not, it's really how I got my start in the automotive field.   I worked with hall effect sensors in infusion pumps, and setup networks for the heart hospitals telemetry unit.   I even was on the hospitals board, the Medical Equipment Management Committee, in where I helped the hospital make decisions in the service, application, and maintenance of there complicated medical equipment.   Using mostly basic hand tools, and armed with a multimeter, and oscilloscope, there I was troubleshooting and diagnosing equipment issues within the hospital.    

After 2 years of in-house medical equipment service I was pursued by a national company called Universal Hospital Services in which, they needed a Biomedical Engineer to assist them with the service and repair of their 500,000 pieces of medical equipment that they rent to hospitals when the hospitals don't have enough of their own equipment.   I quickly was trained on servicing ventilators, and learned a lot about pressure transducers, and differential measurements.   Almost all of the equipment I worked with either was 120volt AC current, that was converted down to 12 volt DC operation.  So even the current and voltage levels in automotive were right on what I was familiar with.  

Long story short, between having 2 young boys, and the increasingly long drives to hospitals I was servicing, I ended up taking a break from healthcare and started working for my father in law, who runs an autobody and collision repair shop.    Quite the change, in some ways, but I was still using my hands, mind, and tools to pull apart vehicles, and put them back together.   Where I struggled was the art factor of autobody (I have a hard time drawing a decent stick figure, let alone shaping bondo so that it blends perfectly with a deformed panel of steel.   After a year an a half of working in autobody, I had most of my basic tools, hand and air, and applied for a position at a Automotive Repair Shop less than a mile away from my house.  

In 7 months of working within the shop I became an ASE Certified Mechanic, where I was installing clutches, motor mounts, radiators, starters, welding, and performing drivability diagnostics.   I became immersed in training and quickly realized that this profession was far more white collar than I had originally conceived in my mind.  Sure, I had a healthy coat of grease permanently embedded in my fingernails, but the network communications of the cars components, and the lab scope diagnostic testing were anything but "parts changing".   

I have spent thousands of dollars in tools, and hundreds of hours in training sessions.  I have obtained a folder chocked full of certificates and training accomplishments, but one thing I really discovered in this industry is that a huge part of the reason people have a hard time paying a mechanic for their work is the assumption it is mindless work.  One of the things we as mechanics/automotive technicians struggle with is getting the customer to understand that we are troubleshooting complicated and advanced machinery with very close tolerances and fragile sensors and electronics.

Overall, no career is just sunshine and rainbows, as there are challenges, but I must say I am very happy with my choice of profession.   As a father of two boys, I find it a bit disheartening that for many parents being a mechanic isn't a prestigious enough occupation.  And, while there are most certainly those who probably shouldn't be changing their own oil let alone someone else's... for the most part, the technicians and mechanics I know want to do one thing and that's make sure the issue with the vehicle is fixed right and in a timely manner.