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Editor’s  Corner
I am not sure to whom the credit is due for the say-

ing - Take pride in how far you have come and 
have faith in how far you can go! But it is reflective of 
the feelings of most clinical engineers (CEs) including 
me – the pride of being a practicing CE. 

I am routinely in continuous communication with 
professional colleagues all over the world. A couple of 
evenings ago, I was chatting with one such colleague 
who works in a mid-west hospital in the United States. 
He is known as a caring manager with vast experience. 
He is hardworking and expects no less from his CEs and 
biomedical equipment technicians. During our chats, he 
was never at a loss for words and always centered his 
talks on the latest sports scores (especially if his favorite 
team won) and about finding ways to collaborate with 
clinical, administration, and IT departments to improve 
his program’s impact on patient care outcomes while at 
the same time saving on hospital expenses. After years of 
these conversations, I could predict the flow. The topics 
did not change much but the order did and there was a 
greater emphasis on his first passion – CE. He is a caring 
manager of the first kind. 

However, a couple of nights ago, our chat was com-
pletely different. His conversation was short, there was 
no Monday morning quarterbacking or any sports chat at 
all. After a short while, I quickly realized that he was not 
himself. I asked him what was going on as I found him 
to be so different. His spirits were up but his response 
shocked me. 

Myself, I practice CE in the largest medical center in 
the world (the Texas Medical Center) where we’ve been 
through hurricanes, floods, and evacuations. As far as 
I can remember, I had never witnessed a colleague’s 
behavior turn as his did that evening. He shared the 
demands of his work that were similar to those that I 

had been hearing from many other colleagues over the 
previous 14 weeks. During these abnormal times, he had 
been working an average of 10 hours a day almost seven 
days a week. He was lost in an environment created by 
the ever-changing knowledge around COVID-19, about 
its spread, diagnosis, care protocols, and the reality of 
shortages of equipment and supplies – and was constantly 
challenged to quickly come up with workarounds and safe 
solutions. But it was the second part that shocked me. 
There are many challenges around the reuse of single-use 
protective gear, to the support of multiple patients from 
a single ventilator, to devising isolation care spaces. At 
this point, he felt that maybe he was not doing enough 
for his patients. The burden was heavy. Successful solu-
tions needed to be trialed and were expected in rapid 
succession, yet the resources of both qualified labor and 
appropriate technology were in short supply. 

I know him and his program, it runs like a Swiss clock. 
Yet he was frustrated by not being able to do more. By 
any measure, he is one of the silent heroes, one of the CE 
professionals who use their competencies, experience, and 
open their hearts every day in the committed pursuit to 
provide safe and efficient patient-ready technology that 
supports the mission of their organization. CEs perform 
their many tasks all over the world 24×7×365 but their 
critical contribution mostly goes unrecognized. The CE 
profession has certainly evolved and has begun to enjoy 
more input into the needed and effective programs they 
provide and manage, especially during this present huge 
demand for CE knowledge and leadership. However, we 
still have a long way to go to increase the awareness of the 
public and medical decision-makers. They need to know 
that by including the unique expertise of competent CE 
practitioners within the healthcare system’s decisions, 
improved safety and quality will follow. This will result 
in healthcare delivery that is more accessible to a larger 
volume of patients - that would not be possible otherwise.

http://www.globalce.org
http://www.globalce.org


J Global Clinical Engineering Vol.2 Issue 3, 2019  2

It is no mistake that the Journal made the decision 
to dedicate our front-page cover to recognizing all CE 
professionals. These are the people that are working 
deliberately to maximize the availability of proper 
technology and ensure that care providers have what 
they depend on to manage and help their patients. In 
other words: to always have the needed safe technology 
in “patient-ready state,” always appropriately selected, 
and in optimal operational performance administered 
under frugal use of resources. 

As you all know, this part we are already delivering. 
So, what else could a hospital administrator wish for? 
If they think of anything, we are listening! 

BIG thanks to my colleagues and all the CE heroes 
all over the world!

Today, tomorrow, together!

Dr. Yadin David

Copyright © 2021. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY): Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0 International 
- CC BY 4.0. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original 
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http://www.globalce.org
http://www.globalce.org

