Engineering students reflect on service-learning trip to Hong Kong & China
Charlene Pobee, Jenna Nguyen and Kaitlyn Sallee share their experiences applying their engineering education abroad
In May, eight students from the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis traveled to Hong Kong and China as part of a service-learning experience though the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Along with students from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, students got hands-on experience creating custom-fitted devices for patients at a rehabilitation clinic.
Read the experiences of Charlene Pobee, Jenna Nguyen and Kaitlyn Sallee, rising seniors majoring in biomedical engineering.
Charlene Pobee
This service-learning trip enabled me to utilize and enhance the skills I have been building for the past few years from using CAD, assessing patients, to fabricating and fitting braces on actual patients which I had not experienced prior. As someone interested in pursuing medicine and research, it also helped me gain a better understanding of engineering applications in clinical settings. All in all, this trip reminded me of the importance of giving back, relying on your peers to fulfill a common goal and above all having fun while doing it.
Jenna Nguyen
Thanks to the Service-Learning Experience in Guangdong & Hong Kong (SLEIGH), I was able to travel to Hong Kong and China, be completely immersed in the local culture, and take in world-famous landmarks, all while crafting spinal braces for low-income and rural patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS).
For nine days, we spent weekdays working in the nearby rehabilitation clinic. Here, we covered foam replicas of seven patients with plaster, cut the thermoformed brace off of the model, trimmed and sanded the edges of the braces, applied posterior straps, met with our patients for brace fittings, and modified the braces in real-time. At the end of this service trip, our patients took home free custom spinal braces
SLEIGH was an unforgettable hands-on experience. This trip piqued my interest in prosthetics and orthotics and has furthered my commitment to helping low-income families with biomedical technology.
Kaitlyn Sallee
SLEIGH provided exposure to Hong Kong and Chinese culture, language, clinical practice, rural access to health care, and cross-cultural collaboration. I had never seen a prosthetics and
orthotics program in action, and it was refreshing to see the intersection of so many technical and creative disciplines in one place. Our project alone incorporated project management, CAD, craftsmanship, on-the-spot problem-solving, emotional intelligence and interprofessional collaboration, all relevant skills in engineering career fields.
Meeting our patient was a beautiful experience, and I loved watching her warm up to us. With my teammate translating, we chatted about school, siblings, and our families’ shared farming backgrounds, before training her and her mother on the daily donning of her brace.
Our time with alum Peter Young proved the stretch of the WashU alumni network, and we saw prosthetics and orthotics practice outside the hospital setting through a company visit. I left inspired to continue exploring practical, patient-facing applications of my BME background and still keep in touch with the friends I made. It was an intense but rewarding two weeks, and I hope the program continues well beyond my time at WashU!
