Inventive Teen Comes Up With Bio-Med Device To Help Hospitals

MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Never let them underestimate you because of your age. That is a mantra of Jonathan Mairena, a senior at South West High School.

The 17-year old student invented a biomedical device that has even medical professionals amazed.

Mairena may seem shy and soft spoken but he's a far cry from your teen. In just a few months Mairena came up with a way to make it easier to read an oxygen tank from a remote location.

"Essentially it will ease the workflow process, making it easier to see the capacity of the oxygen tank from a distance as well as remotely on a monitor. I feel it is necessary, every hospital should have one," said Mairena.

"Jonathan has been the cream of the crop" said Lisa Colsky the head of the respiratory unit at Baptist Hospital.

Last year Mairena enrolled in the Miami Dade County Public Schools internship program and was granted a prestigious placement at Baptist Hospital for the 2015-2016 school year. During his internship, and with the inspiration of his mentor Lisa Colsky, he developed a model of the device and business plan to allow hospitals to check the gauges on oxygen tanks from a remote location.

The plan was submitted to a national contest for students with the Army Corp of Engineers. Mairena and his team won first place.

"I just threw it out there and Jonathan was the only intern who ran with it" said Colsky.

Mairena said more still needs to be done, like creating the prototype and finding funding. This coming school year he will intern at the University of Miami's Biomedical Engineering Program where they will help him take his project to the next level.

The internship and mentoring program with M-DCPS has been around since 1958. For more information on this program you can log on to their website .engagemiamidade.net.