47th DaY of AttaChMent

Rememeber the problem with welch allyn's propaq 102EL that i mentoned yesterday? The problem which is the air was unable to be pumped and show " cuff faulty". The cause of it was i forgotten to reconnect the tubing with one of the connectors when i assembled the monitor after cleaning up the tubing. I feel that was kind of creating an error for me to solve it. Finally, done with the monitors.

I was feeling really bad as i created a work order for the same device with different serial numbers and create so many problems for Mr Toh and Faz. They did say it is alright and just to amend the work orders. However, i am trying to be smart. I promise myself that i should do things more systematic instead of multi-tasking as quality does matter a lot more than quanitity. I shall give my best in whatever i do and ask them before i do it. I shall be determined to give all i can in this job.

Finally, a staff nurse called and told me something that i am quite happy to hear it. She told me that the last terumo infusion pump has been found at ward 7 Hi-Di. I could say that i officially announced that i am done with all the pumps after doing all the necessary tests. for this week, there are quite a few pumps to be delivered to various places as they are either due for maintenance or repair.

I got a called from Staff Nurse Sally that the trigger for aspiration injector is quite tight in the sense that it is difficult for them to push it. It is the first time for me to know the existence of this device. Aspiration injector is used to penetrate into the skin of the patient to collect a tissue sample for examining if their x-ray has a black shadow ( means there is a growing tissue) indication at various parts of the body such as the legs. It only allows 15mm and 22mm needle. The sample can be either collected by a syringe or an aspirator. This is only for general use. The one that is used to take the sample from the patient if they are suspected to have tumor in the breast after having mammogram. The injector used for this case is more of precise as 3 points will be collected and needle will be injected at the centre of the points to collect the sample.

46th DaY oF atTachMent

There is a heated nebuliser, deluxe from datex-ohema, requested for condemnation by the sister of emergency medicine as it is redundant for them. However, if the device is inspected and working well, it will be transferred to other departments. Since it is my first time to do a thoroughly maintenance for nebuliser, i went to look at the service manual and understand it by asking Mr Sin about any doubts that i had. Firstly, you have to measure the temperature for setting 2 and 6. The ranges of them are 52 to 72 and 82 to 96 respectively. Secondly, there is the temperature safety cutoff which is one of the safety features. The nebuliser heater will turn off when it detected that the nebuliser jar is not placed on it within 5 minutes. There is a reset button beneath the heater in order for the user to restart the heating process. finished with my checking with it. i just have to inform him tomorrow as he had meetings today.

Since i am done with the maintenance on the pumps, i took a transport physiologic monitor, one of the 100 series, as it was suspected to have a leak in the device when taking the blood pressure (NIBP) of the patient. Did not think too much about the settings, i started to dismantle the monitor and found out that the tubings for pumping air into the cuff were really dirty. May be the problem lies with the dirt so i cleaned the tubings by removing the dirt with alcohol pads. It took me quite some time to finish up with the cleaning. I tested it again and found out that there is still "hissing" sound. I just rememebered there is another propaq, 102 EL, in the "awaiting parts" cabinet so i test it along with the one i am dealing on. In the end, only the higher limit is 240 mmHg which is too high as usually it will be at 170 mmhg. That's the reason why it keep on pumping air even it is over 160mmhg. There is another problem lies with the 102 EL as it is unable to pump air into the cuff. i shall solve it tomorrow.

It was really nice to see mdm tan today as she is on her way to collect my forms. It has been like a month since i last chatted with her. It is the first time that i actually have much things to tell her.

Richard from STORZ came to comission telescope warmer as the user will end up complaining it cause the telescope either too cold or hot. The commissioning still failed after a few attempts as richard is unable to give us the tolerance for 40 degree and 65 degree slots. I believe that is something misunderstanding during it but thankfully, it is cleared at the end.

45th Day OF attaChMent

The last two pumps are not done yet as they failed the battery test even though they are charged overnight. The problem was battery faulty and lee chong ordered the batteries for the infusion and syringe pump as there are no spare ones in the inventory store. The syringe pump, which was initially have the occlusion out of range, has the battery failure so lee chong just exchanged the battery with another syringe pump. The reason behind it is he made one of them able to be used instead of two syringe pumps waiting for parts. I just found out that the occlusion adjustment resistor is the variable resistor 6 on the main PCB board. I got to learn something new today.

Remember the otoscope that i am dealing with yesterday? After charging overnight, i just found out the battery is unable to be charger by the adaptor as the unicell rechargable battery is slightly shorter than the original welch allyn 3.5V rechargable battery. not only that, it is also not the compatible one for the red head otoscope as the unicell battery was meant for the yellow head otoscope which were condemned long ago. Initially, i thought it is the adaptor's problem. After asking Mr Toh and checking the adaptor with digital multimeter, it does not seems like it is the main problem.

44tH DaY oF aTtAchMent

I managed to spend about 2 hours in doing the safety test for 2 pumps, which are syringe and infusion pumps, and tabulating the results that i got for the tests.Finally, i got to finish almost all of the pumps for May. However, there is still an infusion pump unable to be located as i believe that the pump from SICU loaned to wards. The compact feeding pumps returned from DKSH as 8 pumps were sent to them for preventive maintenance. They would do the function test and cleaning. After they are delivered to BME, the engineer, william, will then did the final test which is the leakage current test.

After lunch, i mainly focusing on repair work on those devices that were just sent to the department by attendents. A pressure control from mattress alternating pressure ( betabed from huntleigh) is making noise. While checking for the orgin of the noise, i found out that the pump is generating most of the noise. After dismantled the motor assembly which is the pump, one of the rubbers in between two magnets lost its elasticity. That's the problem why the pump is making so much noise. I could change the either the rubber or the whole motor assembly in order to solve the problem. Since the pressure control does not have a record of motor asembly being changed, I chose to change the whole pump.

Lastly, the otoscope/othalmoscope was sent to bme yesterday. The problem for this otoscope seems like the battery unable to be charged as the charger rarely spoilt unless it is the nurses' disability of taking care of it. Therefore, i changed and charged the battery overnight to return back to ward 7 as they need it urgently.

43rD DaY of aTtAchMent

Having cough and flu making me feel so lethargic for the whole entire day. Coughing and having flu are usually the symptoms showing that i am getting sick soon. The first call that Faz received from A&E is the slit lamp does not have light source which meant that light bulb unable to turn on. It happened since last saturday. Initially, faz thought the problem was the user overturn the intensity knob. However, after turning the knob, the problem still arised. Since the problem is unable to be solved, we brought back to department. When i brought it back, Mr Toh was pretty shocked as we are not suppose to do so as vapours will condense in the device while traveling from a place to another and this slit lamp, SL-450, has been here for more than 10 years so there is no humidity protection. Vapour condensation increases the chance of algae growing in the devices so it is pretty much not reccommended that we took it back to the department.

There are 3 causes that leads to this problem which are bad contact between the cover and bulb, overturn the intensity knob and light blown. Out of thesethree, the most common problem is the over-adjusted of the intensity knob. The doctors usually know how to diagnose from the measurements that they got from it and basic use of it but not the mechanical area. Therefore, when problem arised, they will not know what to do so biomedical engineering will come in place to solve the problem.

After the problem is solved by Mr Toh and Mr Sin, i was assigned to do the a new cable for it since the old one is already wear out. I took quite long time to solder the wires to the connector and turn out the the soldering was quite dry so Mr Toh gave me some tips on how to have good soldering skills like why we should cover a layer of solder on the wire.

After doing what i suppose to do, i continue where i stop for the maintenance. the occlusion was out of range for STC-523 syringe pump so i am not sure what i should do such as adjusting variable resistor as i have never done occlusion adjustment for the syringe pump and did not understand what the service manual saying. Mr Sin said it is best not to adjust anything as a slight adjustment of any variable resistor will cause it to go way off the range.