University of Portland engineering alumni traveled to Haiti, worked at Bernard Mevs Hospital in Port-au-Prince
Five University of Portland alumni and one staff member from the Shiley School of Engineering recently traveled to Port-au-Prince, Haiti for a week to help repair medical equipment at a local hospital. The alumni were all members of the University’s Engineering World Health (EWH) Club.
(Media-Newswire.com) - Five University of Portland alumni and one staff member from the Shiley School of Engineering recently traveled to Port-au-Prince, Haiti for a week to help repair medical equipment at a local hospital. The alumni were all members of the University’s Engineering World Health ( EWH ) Club. “Our mission was to spend a week repairing medical devices at an understaffed and underfunded hospital,” Emily Bliven ’15 said. “The devices that we worked on were going immediately back to people who needed them.”
Bliven traveled and worked with fellow UP graduates Brian Carter, Jessica Lazatin, Brennan Hogan, and Andrew Belle-Isle. Jared Rees, electronics engineering technician for the Shiley School of Engineering, also joined the alumni group in Haiti.
“The team accomplished a lot under extremely stressful circumstances,” Rees said. “Several pieces of equipment were partially functional and had to be replaced or repaired right away.”
During their week in Haiti, the University of Portland volunteers repaired and brought to service many vital pieces of hospital equipment, including five infusion pumps, three EKGs, four patient monitors, a vital signs monitor, and two suction pumps.
The University’s chapter of EWH is open to any student from any major, with around 20 students attend meetings once a month. This is the second trip to Haiti taken by the University’s EWH club.
“Groups like EWH are important to engineering students because they provide funding and the opportunity for us to expand our knowledge and apply our skills in a real-world environment that really needs the help,” Bliven said. “In Haiti, we were doing work that really mattered.”
Engineering World Health recently published an article about the UP chapter's visit to Haiti.
For more information about the University’s EWH club and Haiti trip, please contact Rees at rees@up.edu or 503-943-8972.
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