Otto Bock Rules!

So since last Wednesday in Berlin I think the program really had some major highlights: first with the visit to Sachsenhausen and then again with the tour of the Otto Bock facilities. It may sound strange to say that I couldn’t wait to see Sachsenhasen, a place where thousands of lives were destroyed, both emotionally and in many cases physically, but the truth is I was. It wasn’t really a feeling of excitement, but more of anxiousness, anxiousness to see a site so important to the history of the world and the capabilities of man for evil. I think its important to be able to connect to those who are suffering or who have suffered so that you are aware of what emotions they may be experiencing and how they came to be in that situation. That’s exactly what the concentration camp did for me. I was able to stand in the same place where thousands of people were persecuted, tortured, and murdered all because of their so-called race. It blows my mind to think that a civilized country could allow that to happen. But what it makes you realize that it all happens in tiny steps. Take for instants the doctors who preformed the inhumane test on the victims of Sachsenhausen, many of them thought that what they were doing was for the greater good of the world. They believed that if they just made a small exception to their conscience then the whole picture would justify their actions. The lesson I get from this is that you cannot make those types of compromises; you should not tolerate one evil act to do one good thing, but instead prevent the wrong from happening in the first place.

On the lighter side of things is the incredible visit the group had to Otto Bock’s production facilities in Duderstadt. I have to say, this was hands down the most fascinating thing I have done on this program. It was pretty much Otto Bock’s products like the C-Leg that drew me to biomedical engineering. I have always loved bionic stuff, so to see up close and in person the processes that go into making these prostheses was awe inspiring. I was literally grinning from ear to ear going through the room where the knee joint of the C-Leg is made. That device is the absolute best prosthetic in the world. It allows a person with an amputated leg above the knee to walk completely unhindered. For most patients with this device the adaptation to it is so remarkable that most observers will not notice any difference in the gait of the patients to that of a person with two healthy legs. So to touch that robo-knee with my own hands, to see all the detail in the dimensions and observe how the mechanics of the joint work just further accelerated my passion for prosthetics, so much so that I’m now heavily considering becoming a prosthetist. What made visiting Otto Bock so remarkable was that there was equally impressive technology in the non-medical related aspects of their facilities than I ever imagined. What I’m talking about is their logistics center. This place was so technologically cool that it blew my mind! It was a massive room with shelves of blue boxes stacked probably close to 110 feet in the air with a base around 80 by 80 feet. Inside this huge warehouse were six or more automated lifts on tracks running down the spaces in between the shelves that would continuously pick and store boxes filled with all kinds of products and materials. These giant machines worked so fast that the noise of them rushing through the air sounded like I was in the middle of a Transformers movie. Our guide told us that these machines work completely autonomously, taking its directions from a system that tracks inventory and customer product orders. This automated system is so efficient that when the warehouse is closed for the night and the few workers who do work there have gone home, it reorganizes the shelves to have the most frequently used boxes of the day in the front of the warehouse in order to save time retrieving them the next day. It reminded me of our brains when we dream, making new connections between neurons to better identify and make sense of our world. Pretty cool stuff.

While Otto Bock was way more than I expected, I cannot say the same for my weekend in Copenhagen. It sucks to say it but I was extremely disappointed with that city. While I had fun with the people I went with, the weather was terrible for most of the time there, and more frustrating was the prices there. A McDonald’s on combo meal was ten dollars! A beer was ten euro! It was outrageous. I feel like it would be really nice to visit Copenhagen in the summer when the streets and water aren’t so dirty, and maybe just for one day, that way I don’t get so hung up on the expense of everything. I don’t want to totally hate on Copenhagen, but unless you really don’t give two licks about spending money, don’t go to there… also they don’t sell Copenhagen in Copenhagen.