Medstudent
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I'm a med student. I've also studied a few semesters of electronic engineering and theoretical physics.
Now I work at an emergency infection clinic. Here a patient can go from perfectly fine to life threatening or dead in minutes. There is a piece of equipment that could save 100:s to 1000:s of lives every year. Because of my background I know the technology exists, or are at least possible to make with current engineering, but it seems no one has implemented it yet.
There is another a problem, though. All ultrasound equipment are made by companies that take out humongolid profit margins. This means that I, as a med student, can't even dream of affording one. We're talking $2.500-$250.000 (USD). Again, with my background, I know these can be sold much cheaper. I don't question the need for incentive to develop them, but no med student or nurse in the world can afford $250.000 USD for a single device, and not even most doctors in public health care.
Ultrasonic blood flow doppler pen.
There are blood flow dopplers, the doppler unit is no larger than a large pen. However they are always connected trough a wire to a speaker unit. These are 15x20cm (6x8 inches) and very unwieldy. They also do not indicate the direction of the flow, which is absolutely essential for determining if you're catching venous or arterial flow. I work at an infection ward, and if there is a sudden stasis in an infected limb (arterial blood comes in, but venous blood doesn't return), this is classified as an ultra-high priority emergency. Failure to correctly identify this can cause loss of limb or even death in septic shock.
You can also detect compartment syndrome, which if undetected can lead to permanent nerve damage, or even amputation. It's also an easy way to detect vascular insufficiency, which can also if untreated lead to severe damage or amputation. The same goes for diabetic foot syndrome and many other problems. If undetected for a long time these can all lead to death.
It could also be used to screen for lower limb vascular insufficiency, which can also have severe consequences if undiscovered.
It could also be used measure vascular filling pressure in the feet, also an important examination.
These work very simply, they send out and ultrasound signal and listen for the return signal as a doppler giving it as an audible "woosh-woosh" sound. You get information through amplitude, pitch and volume. By adding a simple symbol with a simple body indicating which way should be pointing in the arterial direction the device would be very user friendly.
By making it the size of a large pen and reasonably priced, every nurse and dr could have one in their pocket.
Important additional function 1
These devices are only used on limbs. Human blood vessels in limbs are divided into superficial and deep. By adding a small switch to select superficial and deep veins, it could be used to screen for deep venous thrombosis (blood clots in the deep veins). This is a very dangerous condition, early detection is of paramount importance.
Because of the difference in size in patients (muscles and fat), this may not be as simple as it sounds. However the depth of superficial veins are only a few millimeters under the skin. The deep veins are 1cm deep in extremely underweight elderly patients, several centimeters deep in average athletic (musclular patients), and up to 5-10cm deep in bodybuilders, competition athletes and very obese patients. Shouldn't take too much programming to automatically analyse this, and only having two modes (superficial and deep) would decrease the risk of user mistakes.
Important additional function 2
You use a manual pneumatic blood pressure manchette to measure blood pressure. As the blood pressure get within the interval of diastolic (static pressure) and systolic (peak pressure as the heart ejects blood) you get a pop-woosh sound, and below the diastolic pressure all sound goes away. By adding a microphone to the doppler pen, you could get this information in siutations where it's impossible to hear with a stethoscope. Whether it's because of ambient noise (which you get during an emergency) or the very weak sound of the pulsations on a severely septic patient. Adding the assisted blood pressure pulsation microphone would save lives.
There are electronic blood pressure manchettes, but these don't measure the true blood pressure. The true blood pressure must be measured by applying pressure on one part of the arm, and measuring the blood flow after the pressure manchette. The electronic manchettes only give a "best estimate", and can vary greatly from the true pressure.
So please, if you think you can make this, DO IT!
Now I work at an emergency infection clinic. Here a patient can go from perfectly fine to life threatening or dead in minutes. There is a piece of equipment that could save 100:s to 1000:s of lives every year. Because of my background I know the technology exists, or are at least possible to make with current engineering, but it seems no one has implemented it yet.
There is another a problem, though. All ultrasound equipment are made by companies that take out humongolid profit margins. This means that I, as a med student, can't even dream of affording one. We're talking $2.500-$250.000 (USD). Again, with my background, I know these can be sold much cheaper. I don't question the need for incentive to develop them, but no med student or nurse in the world can afford $250.000 USD for a single device, and not even most doctors in public health care.
Ultrasonic blood flow doppler pen.
There are blood flow dopplers, the doppler unit is no larger than a large pen. However they are always connected trough a wire to a speaker unit. These are 15x20cm (6x8 inches) and very unwieldy. They also do not indicate the direction of the flow, which is absolutely essential for determining if you're catching venous or arterial flow. I work at an infection ward, and if there is a sudden stasis in an infected limb (arterial blood comes in, but venous blood doesn't return), this is classified as an ultra-high priority emergency. Failure to correctly identify this can cause loss of limb or even death in septic shock.
You can also detect compartment syndrome, which if undetected can lead to permanent nerve damage, or even amputation. It's also an easy way to detect vascular insufficiency, which can also if untreated lead to severe damage or amputation. The same goes for diabetic foot syndrome and many other problems. If undetected for a long time these can all lead to death.
It could also be used to screen for lower limb vascular insufficiency, which can also have severe consequences if undiscovered.
It could also be used measure vascular filling pressure in the feet, also an important examination.
These work very simply, they send out and ultrasound signal and listen for the return signal as a doppler giving it as an audible "woosh-woosh" sound. You get information through amplitude, pitch and volume. By adding a simple symbol with a simple body indicating which way should be pointing in the arterial direction the device would be very user friendly.
By making it the size of a large pen and reasonably priced, every nurse and dr could have one in their pocket.
Important additional function 1
These devices are only used on limbs. Human blood vessels in limbs are divided into superficial and deep. By adding a small switch to select superficial and deep veins, it could be used to screen for deep venous thrombosis (blood clots in the deep veins). This is a very dangerous condition, early detection is of paramount importance.
Because of the difference in size in patients (muscles and fat), this may not be as simple as it sounds. However the depth of superficial veins are only a few millimeters under the skin. The deep veins are 1cm deep in extremely underweight elderly patients, several centimeters deep in average athletic (musclular patients), and up to 5-10cm deep in bodybuilders, competition athletes and very obese patients. Shouldn't take too much programming to automatically analyse this, and only having two modes (superficial and deep) would decrease the risk of user mistakes.
Important additional function 2
You use a manual pneumatic blood pressure manchette to measure blood pressure. As the blood pressure get within the interval of diastolic (static pressure) and systolic (peak pressure as the heart ejects blood) you get a pop-woosh sound, and below the diastolic pressure all sound goes away. By adding a microphone to the doppler pen, you could get this information in siutations where it's impossible to hear with a stethoscope. Whether it's because of ambient noise (which you get during an emergency) or the very weak sound of the pulsations on a severely septic patient. Adding the assisted blood pressure pulsation microphone would save lives.
There are electronic blood pressure manchettes, but these don't measure the true blood pressure. The true blood pressure must be measured by applying pressure on one part of the arm, and measuring the blood flow after the pressure manchette. The electronic manchettes only give a "best estimate", and can vary greatly from the true pressure.
So please, if you think you can make this, DO IT!
