Mentorship Program Sparks U.S.-Latin American Doctor’s Shift to Medtech featuring Samay
Maria Artunduaga’s grandmother never smoked. However, like many members of her generation, she was exposed to second-hand cigarette smoke much of her life. When she developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lung monitoring technologies were inadequate. Maria’s grandmother lived until age 90, but the last years of her life were exhausting and limiting. Going to mass once a week was all she could endure.
Maria, a Colombia native, arrived at a solution to help the millions of patients like her grandmother who are undertreated for a variety of serious respiratory conditions. Thinking of her grandmother, Maria created her company, Samay (“Samay” means “to breathe deeply” in the Quechua language, the second-most spoken language in the Andean region).
