Dr. Jastisse Arnaldo T. Tejada III is part of the team that introduced a smartphone-linked, ultra-modern stethoscope that’s credited by a growing number of doctors as an important tool in helping treat COVID-19 cases by minimizing close contact between healthcare professional and patient.
A cardiologist, innovator and researcher, Dr. Jastisse Arnaldo T. Tejada III is also considered by not a few of his colleagues and friends as a renaissance man.
As part of the team who invented what many believe is the life-changing Stemoscope (a smartphone-linked, ultra-modern stethoscope), one would think he has limited himself within the confines of a laboratory most of his professional life. But Tejada’s curious, imaginative side has always pushed him to think outside the box.
Nurture also played a huge role in molding him to what he has become today. A graduate of the University of Perpetual Help Jonelta Foundation School of Medicine in Las Piñas City, Tejada, 31, grew up having a doctor for a grandmother.
Tejada recalls, “Growing up in the province, I saw how my grandmother helped and changed the lives countless poor people through innovation. Since there were limited medical resources and equipment in the province, I saw how my grandmother improvised to help her in her practise. That inspired me to become an innovator and a doctor for the poor.”
The propensity to live in service runs in his blood—but so is the propensity to create.
A well-rounded student, the young Tejada was also very much drawn to the arts. His earliest memory of entertaining his artistic side was his childhood fascination with Lego because, he says, “you can create anything with those blocks.”
In fact, his initial love for the arts continued to grow deeper, so much so, that he competed a number of times in regional and national art competitions during his youth.
And while he was in medical school, he took up a stint as a part-time art teacher. “I really think there is a relationship between being an artist and being an inventor/designer because in both professions, you will come up with masterpieces.”
His biggest masterpiece
While the artist in him continues to flourish, his biggest masterpiece is not hanging in a museum or in an art gallery. It is—or they are—used in healthcare facilities, helping healthcare workers gather certain details about a person’s medical condition safely, especially during the pandemic.
This masterpiece is called Stemoscope Pro, a device that allows the user to detect a wide range of sounds, including regular heart sounds and heart murmurs. The device can be connected to any smartphone, through the Stemoscope app, which also allows the user to record the detected sounds.
The pandemic had health professionals scrambling to get their hands on the product, which helps them examine their patients while maintaining physical distancing and without breaking PPE protocols.
Not only that, the Stemoscope is also now being used by people outside of the healthcare industry. For instance, pregnant women who want to record the sound of their baby while he or she is still inside the womb, have purchased the product.
The name Stemoscope is a portmanteau of the words STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education and stethoscope.
Tejada explains, “While not known to most, everything in nature has a frequency and creates a unique sound. Even plants and trees have detectable sounds. The question we need to answer is this: how can we explore these incredible sounds of nature around us? Hence, we came up with a tool that can open our door to science and nature in a new and exciting way.”
To improve the product further, their team, under Hulu Innovations Inc.—a US firm based in San Diego, California—had developed the Stemoscope Pro, which has an advance noise-cancelling technology inside the device.
The user won’t have to use a pair of noise-cancelling headphones or earphones. This new version is also a plug-and-play device, which can be used without a smartphone, and it’s waterproof.
Going further away from the box
The pandemic has made it seem like a big part of the world has come to a standstill.
Hulu Innovations, Inc. has chosen to move faster and further away from the proverbial box. With their knowledge and skills that could help ease a big chunk of the burden of healthcare professionals, moving fast is the only option.
Recently, Tejada says, the team had finished designing the world’s first smartphone auscultatory blood pressure kit. (Auscultation is listening to the internal sounds of the body, usually using a stethoscope.)
The device is called Accutension, which has already been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration.
“With the integration of our wireless stethoscopes, patients can now accurately send their health data in the comforts of their home or office. We think this is the future. Since the pandemic, or because of heavy traffic or our busy schedules, we cannot physically see our healthcare provider, or we can’t see them often. And not having a regular medical checkup or followup is very detrimental to our health,” Tejada explains.
The future he sees is a world where common and important diagnostic tests can be done at the patient’s home through a series of modern devices.
The doctor-inventor has already achieved so much at a young age, but he seems to be only at the beginning of his journey. Like his grandmother, he aims to make medicine accessible to everyone and anyone who needs care.
He says that if he had all the resources and time in the world, he would even widen his research and delve into other health issues: “I want to study and do research on drugs that can cure obesity, for instance. There are, of course, health and mental benefits to being in the right shape.”
But that’s another masterpiece for another day.
Stemoscope is available on Lazada and Shoppee while Stemoscope Pro was recently launched in the US via Indiegogo (https://igg.me/at/stemopro). For more information, visit the Facebook page Stemoscope Ph, or the website www.stemoscope.com/ph
