ArchivesCategory: Health

The first month of being an #EngineerOnTheWards has involved learning to stay afloat in the hospital. They’ve taught us how to talk the talk (i.e. take patient histories) and walk the walk (i.e. perform physical exams). I’ve learned to position my stethoscope to locate a heart murmur, how to percuss the lungs for consolidations, how […]Continue Reading

Hi my name is Lina, I am an engineer, and I am spending 3 months in the hospital learning to take care of patients. The HST Program is a one-of-a-kind experience to learn from some of the best technical minds at MIT as well as some of the most famous clinicians in the world at […]Continue Reading

I was absolutely thrilled to get an invitation from Bob Graboyes at the Mercatus Center to be on a panel on healthcare innovation at the NABE Economic Policy Conference. Here is a recap of the panel.   Policies to Promote Health Care Innovation March 8, 2106 at 1:30-2:30p Lina A. Colucci, Former Co-Director of MIT Hacking Medicine, MIT/Harvard […]Continue Reading

This is one of my favorite stories about medicine, wrong first assumptions, and love. I first heard it when Dr. David Bangsberg gave a guest lecture to my PhD class. I’ve been meaning to share this story for the past year but there were certain details that I forgot over time. I had a chance to fill in […]Continue Reading

I visited the Kinoni Health Center in Uganda. Below is their in-patient building. We entered the various wards with patients laying on metal bed frames with dirty strips of foam. We stood in the middle of the room and were told about the health clinic as the patients stared back at us. I felt offensive. I […]Continue Reading

Health sensors will eventually diagnose every illness, disease, and ailment. In 20 years, diagnosis will no longer be part of the physician’s job description. Doctors get agitated when they hear this. “Never!” they proclaim. “Maybe for simple ailments but machines certainly can’t diagnose complex, multi-faceted diseases. We’ll always need talented physicians for those situations.” I […]Continue Reading

Apply for Healthcare’s Grand Hackfest on March 14-16th at the MIT Media Lab!    A joint production by MIT’s H@cking Medicine and the Kauffman Foundation.  About 300-400 participants will be flying in from across the country, Canada, Uganda, and India to tackle some of healthcare’s biggest problems! By participating, you will meet a ton of […]Continue Reading

I have carried a notebook every day since age 7, and one of the “rules” I invented along the way is writing a quote on the first page before I am allowed to write anything else. Once the journal is filled, I write a different, complementary quote on the last page. I am not particularly […]Continue Reading