RAWALPINDI: This is with reference to Muhammad Hamid Zaman’s article of January 5 titled “Doctors, meet engineers”. I appreciate the professor’s initiative in writing on what is otherwise a usually-neglected subject. But the matter is not so straightforward; that doctors identify problems and engineers respond accordingly.
What is first needed is a body of professionals interested in, say, health-related engineering. This could be used to attract all like-minded people, and could be not only doctors and engineers but also those from other professional fields interested in this issue.
The basis for the brainstorming, on what needs to be done, should be perhaps a survey. This can be done even a relatively small-scale, say, single ward/hospital. It will take feedback from doctors about the electronic equipment that they use and they could be asked to rank it, in descending order from ‘most important’ first. The doctors can also be asked to give reasons why certain types of equipment wear and tear quicker than other types — details regarding running maintenance and purchasing cost could also be asked for. These kinds of details and the feedback can then be used when making further equipment for use in hospitals. In my humble clinical career in surgery, the types of equipment I found of use were: pulse oximeters, cardiac monitors, ventilators (portable and static) and suction machines.
Dr Shafiq Chughtai
Former registrar, General Surgery
Holy Family Hospital
Published in The Express Tribune, January 9th, 2012.
