“Tactile Innovation” with 3D printing in the Ethiopian Healthcare

?Here’s one to change the narrative

Years after my graduation and the many interesting people I keep meeting, teach me about the outside of medicine, I’ve realized, that there has been so much more than just a guideline, and there’s still a lot going on in the field’s advancement. According to the futurists, their predictions when it comes to innovation and technology in healthcare are even more encouraging to listen more and be inspired to do.?

They call it additive manufacturing_ 3D printing technology, created in trying to find a faster way to prototype products back in 1980 in Japan, this technology was something I was interested in a couple of years back watching about it on TV. It felt so far away from here that I thought it’s gonna take it forever to come to Ethiopia or till I TOUCH one. And here I am now not only touching it but some of my friends even building it out here from scratch. This machine from a layman's perspective like myself is supposed to print out your imagination from all the XYZ dimensions. How cool is that??

My engineer & computer geek friends also talk about another mind-blowing creation_subtractive manufacturing _which does the opposite of 3D printing. This means, that if you give it a cube block, you can print out your face as a statue with it. Wow!

It makes me wanna say maybe I should’ve joined engineering instead of med school but again I don’t regret anything. They were talking about these amazing inventions like they’re some sort of obvious things that happen in everyday life…like I would tell them about a cool medical procedure as something so typical. When we’re working in our fields for too long we sort of see it as something given and when we see the outside, we are always mind-blown also feels like you live in a cave while there’s so much fun stuff to learn. Well, that’s all of us.?

Thankfully there’s a catch to all these_ A brand new perspective. An opportunity. At the time we knew about this technology’s existence, the sky was the limit. Now our prototype sketches could come to life. Literally, our ideas become handheld.?

We immediately experimented on printing some items we lose, ran out of, or maybe wish to exist around the hospital and take forever to purchase or even get donated so there’s probably no way of seeing those parts ever again.?

But now, if we took a selfie with the gadget or could google it, that’s it! Game over! We are 3D printing it. ?Such a quick fix!

Anyways, these are some of the 3D prints we experimented on for now. Small-scale stuff as a start_just for fun.?Such as pill grinders, splitters, fetoscopes, and umbilical cord clamps. Also, we plan to make new items to subject them for research and development. Imagine having 3D printers in the rural hospital setups, how much stuff we can print out in place of buying them...or at worse, functioning without them.

Now if we get donations or free stuff, we know exactly what to ask for_Not something that’s already made but something that will make us make some things, like 3D printers.?

Also, we challenge engineers and tech gurus to make a whole new type of 3D printing technology…that works with something other than manufactured filaments/resins…I don’t know, maybe human tissue??

In conclusion, we hope and work for the days we get to “schedule” heart transplants rather than “wait” which is to diplomatically mean until someone else’s unfortunate decease. Yes, the bio-printing of cardiac muscle tissues, might not be so far away from today.?

Salsa Witty?

Always here for the tea.?