Mechanical engineering student and American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) member, Natalie Carne (Dayton, OH) spent one of her summers in Tanzania, a country in East Africa. Together with other engineering students from all over the United States, Natalie helped the local Tanzanian people take care of biomedical equipment at their hospitals.

Before starting work at Machame Hospital in Moshi, Tanzania, Natalie spent a month in intensive training to learn Swahili and to develop a basic familiarity with the types of biomedical equipment with which she would be working. During her time in training Natalie lived in Tanzania with a host family who had two small children. Their youngest child, daughter Anita, grew quite fond of Natalie and enjoyed learning about the United States and playing American games during their evening time together.

At the Machame Hospital she repaired and refurbished donated medical equipment. This required Natalie to make extensive use of her specialized engineering skills in a real-time, real-world environment. In addition to this, she wrote operating instructions and repair manuals in Swahili for each piece of equipment. She learned Swahili specifically so she could do this task. By doing so, Natalie helped make it easier for the local people to maintain the equipment on their own after she and her friends left.

Even though she is a mechanical engineering major, Natalie said her electronics and circuits classes were very useful to her, especially when she had to fix a power supply. Natalie refurbished or repaired centrifuges, foot operated aspirators, glucometers, ultrasound probes, blood pressure cuffs, wheelchairs, a blue ray device used to treat jaundice, and an electrosurgical device used for cutting and cauterizing. That very same electrosurgical device saved a person’s life just hours after Natalie repaired it. Natalie was there and observed the life saving surgery. Sometimes, one person can make a big difference!