Post Number 4

The week that we spent in Berlin was amazing. We met a very nice guy at a Turkish restaurant neat our hotel, saw the remains of the Berlin wall, practiced important medical skills, and learned about the history of Germany. It was nice to be able to compare large German cities such as Berlin to the smaller city life of Bonn. Out of all the activities and tours we did this week the most memorable to me was the visit to Sachsenhausen and Otto Bock.

The Holocaust was a huge black mark for the history of this country, and we were placed right in the middle of it. As soon as we arrived at the concentration camp, that attitude of the entire group shifted. We went from a cheerful crowd to a more mellow and reverent group. As the tour guide led us deeper and deeper into this place of horror, I began to truly grasp the magnitude of the era. She taught us about the experiments that were done on the inhabitants of the camp, the horrible decisions that the prisoners were forced to make, and the living conditions in which they were forced to stay. Our last stop of our tour was the gas chamber. This was the place where many Jews lost their lives. All of us walked through in silence. There was nothing that could be said. I cannot imagine how something this horrible was allowed to occur for so long.

The next day we travelled to Duderstadt to visit the Otto Bock Center. I had been looking forward to this trip all week, and it was everything that I could possibly hope for. We were greeted with a nice lunch in their lounge. Then we were allowed to go inside the manufacturing plant. We were showed how they make the specific liners made of silicone, polyethylene, or copolymer. Then we were taken to a room where flexible carbon is used to make prosthetic legs. After this we were shown how different parts were created using wood, stainless steel, titanium, or aluminum. It’s amazing to see how much precision goes into every piece contributing to the final product.

After we learned how things were made, we were shown how they were stored, sorted, and shipped. This was probably one of the coolest aspects of the company. Everything is ran by a computer system. Each object is placed into a blue container with a barcode on it. The information, such a product number and quantity, is inputted into the computer. Then the box is placed on a conveyer belt which automatically transports it to the warehouse for storage. When an object is needed for a shipment the computer will locate the box and move it to the workstation of the employee who is preparing the shipment. This system can move thousands boxes in and out of the warehouse in one hour. But wait! That’s not the coolest thing. Overnight the system runs a self analysis. It will calculate which objects are used most often and move then to the front of the shelves so that they can be accessed more efficiently.

Otto Bock was very welcoming to our group. The tour guides seemed to know a lot about the company and their newest designs, such as the ActiGait and the DynamicArm system for Targeted Muscle Reinnervation (TMR). It was the first time that this program was allowed to visit the facilities, and I hope that the program is invited again in the future.