by K. Richard Douglas
Organizations and companies across the U.S. have teamed with specialists in various professions to make great things happen. A classic example of this type of teamwork is a training collaboration between Exxon Mobile, MediSend International and an HTM professional named Sheneka Rains, BSEE, CBET, who is currently the director of clinical engineering for Rosellini Scientific.
With help from Exxon, and MediSend used medical equipment is provided to hospitals in developing countries. MediSend also tests and repairs laboratories and provides certified training and education in biomedical equipment technology.
That’s where Rains comes in.
“While working at MediSend, I also repaired and tested hundreds of medical devices that were donated by large foundations to various developing country hospitals,” she says. “We filled 50-foot shipping containers with as much donated equipment and supplies as we could fit in the containers. Our team ensured that the equipment was outfitted and tested to work in the countries that we were sending them to.”
MediSend International is a not-for-profit organization that works with healthcare systems in developing countries. The organization’s Global Education Center and distribution facility are located in the Elisabeth Dahan Humanitarian Center at MediSend’s headquarters in Dallas, Texas.
While it may not seem like an adventure working close to home, the task of training biomeds from dozens of countries, and assembling custom biomedical kits, can be fraught with challenges. During her four and a half years with MediSend International, Rains learned to appreciate the challenge her students faced by leaving their native environments for six months.
Training the World’s Biomeds
“The MediSend International Biomedical Repair Program started as a pilot program founded and funded by ExxonMobil and mirrored DODs BMET program in many ways,” Rains says. “We brought students here to the United States from underdeveloped countries for a six-month, ultra-intensive course that consisted of more than 950 hours of hands-on instruction — exceeding the number of hours of an associate’s degree.”
Rains has worked with students from Kazakhstan, India, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Haiti and many African countries.
“We taught them electronics, basic safety (CPR/blood borne pathogens), medical device development, operating principals, clinical usage, maintenance and troubleshooting,” she says.
The troubleshooting portion of the training covered 32 major classifications of medical equipment, ranging from suction pumps and centrifuges to defibrillators, clinical chemistry analyzers and diagnostic ultrasound imaging systems.
“We believed that an effective technician must understand the normal operating condition of the medical technology they support, so we spent a lot of time teaching theory of operation and clinical usage prior to troubleshooting and preventive maintenance,” Rains says.
“This teaching methodology is one of the differentiators that makes MediSend’s program unique. The student’s remaining two weeks were spent at a state-of-the-art hospital for an internship experience,” she adds. “It was important to have the training here to better control the learning environment, expose them to their future and the future of medical technology, break them of their old-world habits and create a solid English-based teaching platform.”
Rains responsibilities were the electronics, ultrasound physics, medical equipment program management and clinical chemistry system courses.
Assembling Biomedical Kits
“I also designed, procured and assembled biomedical kits,” Rains says. “Each kit had over 4,000 components and had everything needed to set up a biomedical shop with test equipment, supplies and consumables to maintain 80 percent of all medical equipment found in a hospital. I trained 96 technicians in the five years I was at the school and made over 100 of the biomedical kits.”
Those biomedical kits were specifically tailored to a hospital in the destination country.
“For example, all biomedical test equipment had the proper power configuration and plugs to match the recipient country,” Rains says. “We also took an inventory of the recipients’ hospitals’ patient monitoring equipment and ensured that the kits had the proper peripheral adapters to test and repair their equipment.”
Rains says that one challenge of working with donated equipment was finding the necessary accessories before shipping the equipment off to its final destination.
“MediSend International also took in gently used medical equipment donations, less than five years old, outfitted them with the proper power configuration, supplies, accessories and literature for the recipient hospitals,” she says. “The challenge was often sourcing the additional supplies and accessories to support the device in the field. We aimed to be part of the solution not create more problems for the recipient hospitals.”
As Clinical Engineering Director
In her position at Rosellini Scientific, she is involved in important work also.
“In my current role, as Director of Clinical Engineering at Rosellini Scientific, I help facilitate the evolution of medical technology projects into companies through business organization, managing operations, planning of growth and exit strategies,” Rains says.
“Current projects include deployed medical services, telemedicine, clinical engineering services, pre-clinical/clinical trials and commercialization support for migraine therapy, overactive bladder and atrial fibrillation implantable neurotechnology — just to name a few,” she adds.
Rains says that the entrepreneurial spirit at Rosellini attracts like-minded people to the company’s projects.
“We simply give them the tools they need to be successful and sit back and watch the results. It’s very gratifying,” she says.
Rains is also a member of the North Texas Biomedical Association. In her spare time, she dotes on a pair of three-year-old twin goddaughters, who she describes as very smart. She is also an avid reader and enjoys rowing.
“I row leisurely at the Dallas Rowing Club but hope to start racing this year,” she says.
It was back in high school that Rains first realized that she should pursue a career in math, science or computers, after a counselor revealed the results of an aptitude test. She went to college to study electronic engineering. She first became a teaching assistant with MediSend. She went on to earn her CBET certification and became a full-time instructor of electronics and ultrasound physics.
That early career choice proved fruitful for not only Rains, but for many others. Her efforts have had a global impact on the lives of countless patients.