Britanny Reiche and Sarah Bruch, the 2013 Leacross bio-medical student award winners at the Ottawa Heart Institute, had a busy summer. Their work included the following.
Research on:
1. Cooler testing for methods of transporting a heart for transplant (we’ve been looking at methods that keep the heart within a safe temperature range to avoid damaging the heart tissue)
2. Developing a device to determine whether an aortic valve is leaking after a repair while still in surgery
Their personal research projects on:
- Factors that affect heart transplant wait times
- Effect of transthoracic impedance on defibrillation success
Repairs and preventative maintenance on various hospital equipment from both life support and patient monitoring aspects, including:
- Ventilators
- Intra-Aortic Balloon Pumps
- Gas Machines in the Operating Rooms
- LVADs (Left Ventricular Assist Devices) and their associated equipment
- Infusion Pumps
- As well as a variety of smaller scale equipment, like blood pressure cuffs, pulse oximeters, temperature probes, ECG leads, etc.
They have had opportunities to participate in:
- Transplant Rounds
- In-services from other departments
- Surgeries (e.x., small aorta replacement, electro-physiology)
- Cyclotron repairs
They also performed morning rounds, where they checked all nursing stations and hallways for damaged equipment, which they returned to the shop and repaired themselves.