Doctoring the Printer

Dr. Tarek Loubani                                             TarekAndJohn.com

Talk about necessity being the mother of invention! This whole 3D printing thing is pretty amazing. People are making clothes, shoes, (guns ...), bicycles, musical instruments, even food (http://readwrite.com/2014/02/14/3d-printing-printers-projects-applications-prints). But it's when these printers are used to save lives that their real value becomes apparent. Prostheses have been made, and now, in an area where medical supplies are almost impossible to come by, a Canadian doctor who works in the Gaza Strip has used a 3D printer to make a functioning stethoscope for 30 cents. "The goal here is self-sufficiency, and so the plan for Gaza and other underserved areas is to have 3D printers there," Dr. Tarek Loubani explained. "It would cost about as much for a 3D printer as to buy a new Littmann stethoscope." Loubani heads up a project whose goal is to make just such medical devices, inexpensively. He has already created a loom for weaving gauze and an otoscope. All plans are published online for anyone to use: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-08/14/3d-printed-stethoscope-gaza