Dr. Jastisse “Jast” Arnaldo T. Tejada III, 31, a cardiologist, innovator, and researcher, is a renaissance man.
As part of the team who invented the life-changing Stemoscope (a smartphone-linked, ultra-modern stethoscope), one would think he has stayed in the confines of a laboratory most of his life. But Dr. Tejada’s curious, imaginative side has always pushed him to explore his varied skills.
A graduate of the University of Perpetual Help Jonelta Foundation School of Medicine in Las Piñas City, he grew up having a doctor for a grandmother.
Dr. Tejada recalls, “Growing up in the province, I saw how my grandmother helped and changed the lives of the poor people through innovation. Since there are limited medical resources and equipment in the province, I saw my grandmother improvise things that can help her practice and can help her patients.
“That is my inspiration 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 Dr. Tejada was very much captivated by the arts. His earliest memory of entertaining his aesthetic side was him being fascinated with Lego because, he says, “You can create anything with those blocks.”
In fact, his love for the arts continuously grew deeper, so much so, that he competed in regional and national art competitions several times.
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 is still palpably flourishing, 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, 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 personal protective equipment (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.
Dr. 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 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. chooses to move faster, to move 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, Dr. 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.
Dr. Tejada says, “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.”
The future he sees is a world where common and important diagnostic tests can be done at the patient’s home through 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 launched in the US on Nov. 5 via Indiegogo (https://igg.me/at/stemopro). For more information about the product please visit the Facebook page Stemoscope Ph, or the website www.stemoscope.com/ph.