Day 3-4-5

The last few days have been a blur on a huge level. On Sunday we took a flight to Goa early in the morning and I had the chance to use the flight delay to catch up on my game. After that the students ended up taking four minivans across the hilly area to Hubli. The ride was an interesting combination of terrifying driving, beautiful vistas, and dense forest. The jungle area housing was incredibly colorful, and the places we got to see on the way looked amazing! The students met us that night, and I quite literally tumbled out of the car and into bed. There was some delicious meal that I effectively was in a daze through. It seems to be a common theme for me for this trip that I am slightly out of it after 7PM. The next day we were given a tour of the campus and I had the opportunity to meet the Indian students on my team! I was happy to find that they were as excited to work with us a we were with them. After the tour we were dropped off at the clinic where we would have the opportunity to hopefully test our design. After a quick explanation to the doctor we had the opportunity to watch the workflow of the clinic. As in the US the clinic is run by the clinician, but the actual work is done by the technicians (and they are very skilled at what they do) the clinician uses a thermoformed socket alongside basic components to make devices for the local amputees. For patients who have more income the new and higher tech limbs are available. During our visit I did a quick material and parts inventory of what the patients were using. One of the interesting things is that the high tech limbs were actually aftermarket devices. In the states, we had heard of the practice of reselling lightly used diabetic patients limbs for patients without the means for purchase in other countries, but this was the first time we had found it outright. The designs themselves were standard and the patients seemed happy with the devices. While there it was established that the clinician did not in fact speak the local language (Kannada) and the patient did not speak any Hindi. In that case it seemed that the Techs had to do a lot of bridging of speech from the patient to the doctor (and at first left us assuming the doctor was just very brusque) The practices in the clinic are excellent for the region but about 10 years delayed from current US standard of care. This is excellent for Nonspec as it means our approach (designed to emulate the US device approach) will be a welcome change for the patients who are currently not experiencing any osseofixation or designs to assist with hydrostatic suspension in the limb. The components in the clinic are on par with what we expected to find, and all in all it appears they are an excellent group to begin testing our technology with. The second day we met the principal of the college, and he seemed to very much like our idea and he felt that our work was something that could have a great use in India, even without the mass production price point. We interviewed with patients today, and it was heartening to hear that our device seemed to be something that was of high quality and good make. (I look forward to when the patient has the opportunity to handle our final run devices) The students form India are integral to our research, and have provided us with so much information about the region as well as interacting with patients for us. I don’t think we could have done any of this without their support and I look forward to continuing to work with them!