Doctor - a zigzag journey

Part 17 - The artificial heart valve

Background: 1991 - 1992 (Age 24 - 25 years)  

"Good morning Mr. Goh, I am KC," I greeted my supervisor at Pacific Biomedical Enterprise which was located in an industrial park in Singapore, "I am doing my industrial placement in your organisation."

"Welcome KC," Mr. Goh replied with a pleasant voice and a smile that was reassuring that he was welcoming me. He was tall and fit in his long sleeve white shirt and a navy blue long pant. He had short hair and he wore a pair of silver steel-framed spectacles. That appearance was typical of a professional man working in a healthcare field - making artificial heart valve for humans. There were many other colleagues in the engineering and admin departments. They were all friendly and helpful to me.

This was my long-awaited industrial placement. My first day was spent reading the company orientation manual and technical descriptions of an artificial heart valve. A metal heart valve is a prosthetic device comprising a disc pivotally mounted within a ring. The disc and ring are arranged so that the blood flows through the valve reduces the likelihood of blood clot formations. The movable flaps in the artificial heart valve allow blood flow in one direction and prevent blood flow back in the opposite direction. The process flow of making an artificial heart valve could be too complex to describe here. One of the main process steps was to make sure the surface of the artificial heart valve was smooth to avoid the formation of blood clots within the valve. Apart from having some automated process steps, there were processes that were dependent on the workers. I witnessed the determination and diligence of the workers who manually polished an artificial heart valve to the best standard. The workers, whose faces were half covered in the big face masks that they were wearing, flexed their necks and focused on polishing the metal valves for hours. Their dexterity in handling the small metal piece and their perseverance in perfecting their polishing skill were inspiring. The calluses on their fingers evidenced their hard work! And yet their hard-worked metal valves could be rejected when they reached the hands of the stringent quality assurance staff if the smoothness of the surface of the metal valve failed to meet the high standard requirement. Undeterred, the workers re-polished the metal valves till they were accepted! It could easily took up to a few hundred hours of hard work, diligence, and determination, to produce a piece of high standard artificial heart valve.

Most of my industrial placement days were spent in the engineering and production departments witnessing the undeterred people working towards their goals - producing a high-quality artificial heart valve readily implantable to a human who is in need of it.

The daily routine and the manufacturing process could be mundane but educational. I was grateful for the kindness and helpfulness of Mr. Goh and other colleagues throughout my industrial placement.

Perseverance and diligence to work towards achieving a high standard of requirement were the most valuable lesson that I learned from the industrial placement.

Upon completion of my industrial placement, I focused on my final-year-project on a different subject - finite element analysis (FEM) on composite material used in making the wing of an aeroplane. This project involved application of a powerful FEM software in designing various composite materials with imperfections (such as delamination or hole) embedded in it, and analysing its impact on the vibration and strength of the material.

"Hey Esther, we will graduate soon. Have you started looking for a job?" I asked Esther after attending a lecture.

"Hmmm, I will try applying for Motorola. How about you?" said Esther with a big grin on her beautifully dimpled face. Her tanned skin went well with her outgoing personality.

"The company that makes artificial heart valve does not have a vacancy for an engineer in the near future. I will try applying for a position in a mechanical or electronic manufacturing company," I answered with a voice that was filled with uncertainty.

Competition for a job was intense. Graduation could possibly mean unemployment to me. By the time I graduated, I would have spent the few thousand dollars that Ah Ma gave me, and I would have accumulated a substantial amount of debt to the bank in Singapore.

The university was like an "ivory tower" to me. I would soon step out of it to face the real life of finding a job to earn a living. My days in the "ivory tower" were numbered. Worried, but I was undeterred.