Méabh Loughman's health struggles as a child inspired her to do a master's degree in electronic engineering in healthcare technologies (MEng HcT). The course is jointly delivered by Dublin City University, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and Maynooth University.
The 23-year-old Dubliner, who lives with her parents in Terenure, was born with a cleft palate. She was in and out of hospital quite often and needed two major surgeries to correct the problem, the first when she was six months-old. She also needed specialist dental and orthodontic treatment.
“All of the healthcare technologies you could think of, I’ve had them on my face,” Loughman said. “During speech and language therapy, they used really cool robotic things to check my speech.”
But she says some of the medical devices she encountered “were a little bit scary” because they were designed for adults.
“I thought, wouldn’t it be great to help the next generation of little girls and boys getting their palates checked.”
She graduated from Maynooth University with an undergraduate degree in electronic and telecommunications engineering last year and decided to go straight into the postgrad.
“It’s kind of like biomedical engineering, but the electronic version. It’s about how our bodies use electrical stimulation to keep going. It’s basically learning about how to improve the existing technologies that we have in healthcare.”
Loughman is one of only two students in the first year of the 18-month programme. The workload is heavy, and taking modules at three different campuses is “intense”.
She goes on clinical visits to hospitals as part of the course. “It’s really nice to see it helping people in front of you. It’s inspirational to think maybe one day I could contribute a little bit.”
After the course, she sees herself either doing research or getting a job in a company.
