I’m a medical intern at the PGH, but never in my whole life did I imagine I’ll become a doctor. After becoming a Mechanical Engineer in 2014, I applied for the MS program in my department, hoping to do biomedical device research. But my research adviser had a better idea, he encouraged me instead to take up medicine.

I feel very fortunate that I can use both my engineering and medical skills to help people in this pandemic by being part of a team – the UPCM SIBOL PAPR team under Dr. Sam Grozman. We are building a PAPR for frontliners, like a “space suit” for the healthcare workers. My task is designing and testing the electronics and software that will control the respirator. A respirator should be responsive to the user’s breathing and reliably perform under a range of environmental conditions. Fabrication is helped by the availability of low-cost and open source electronics. We used the Arduino platform, an open source microcontroller as the “brain” of our respirator. Several sensors communicate pressure and air velocity information to the Arduino and it then sends commands to the blower to adjust airflow. How fast and by how much the device responds is based on safety standards for PPEs and basic knowledge of respiratory physiology. Hopefully, our finished prototype can give our frontliners a much-needed upgrade.

Intern Miguel Albije, UPCM Class 2020 | Published in Healthscape Special COVID-19 Issue No. 6