Two days before a large São Paulo, Brazil, hospital was set to unveil a new women’s healthcare clinic, an ultrasound machine malfunctioned. It wasn’t sending images to the right destinations. Fausto Cruz, working for a company that repairs GE HealthCare equipment, was helping with the project.
That day in 2010, however, was Fausto’s day off. He was sitting in on his weekly English language class in flip-flops and shorts when he received a panicked phone call from hospital administrators. He tried to help with the repair via phone, but the machine still wasn’t working. So he packed up his English books and rushed over to the hospital. He fixed the problems, and the unveiling of the new space went off without a hitch.
Two years later, the same machine stopped working during patient exams. Medical staff wanted it fixed as soon as possible so they could fulfill long-held appointments for patients. Fausto and a clinical engineer colleague spent days at the hospital trying to fix the machine.
Finally, after finding new parts and spending long hours in the women’s clinic, they figured it out. It was a powerful experience for Fausto in more ways than one. He realized how much he relished solving customer problems. Today Fausto is a field service specialist working directly for GE HealthCare. In his five years at the company, he’s seen both his professional and personal lives profoundly changed for the better.
“I feel very passionate about my work,” Fausto says. “I want to create great relationships, and in these clinics that I work in, customers end up turning into friends.”
Finding Love on the Job
Thanks to the job, he also met his future wife. When Fausto revisited the hospital in 2012 to fix the ultrasound machine, he knew from the moment he laid eyes on Renata Murata, a clinic nurse, that they were destined to be together. Renata popped in and out of the room where Fausto was working on the Voluson E8 ultrasound machine to check on his progress. After one long day, she brought him a tray of hospital food.
Once the job was done, they exchanged phone numbers. Renata was drawn to Fausto, too. “I didn’t ask her out; she asked me out,” he says. They went to the movies, and that first date led to a second and then a third. Four years later they got married. Their custom wedding cake topper, made by a local bakery, featured the beaming bride and groom along with the Voluson E8, repair tools, and a hospital lunch tray.
Two years later, the couple wanted to have a baby. Months passed and Renata wasn’t getting pregnant, so she started hormone therapy at the clinic where she still worked. At around the same time, Fausto installed a Voluson E10 at another clinic where the head doctor was an expert in IVF treatments.
He completed the job, then in passing he mentioned that he and his wife were having trouble getting pregnant. The doctor said he could help them, and the couple transferred to his clinic. Eventually she underwent IVF. Out of three viable embryos, one took, and the couple’s son, Eduardo, was born in June 2020.
Eduardo came a month early, so he stayed in the hospital in a GE HealthCare incubator for two weeks to make sure his respiratory system was functioning properly. This past year, when another unit in Renata’s hospital switched to GE HealthCare bone density machines, Fausto helped with the job. While he showed nurses how to operate the machine, Renata picked up Eduardo and brought him to the clinic to celebrate the place where it all started.
A Background and Future in Engineering
For Fausto, working in healthcare technology has long been a calling. As a teenager in São Paulo, he studied mechatronics at a technical high school and spent his first internship helping repair machines in a dialysis clinic. He saw firsthand how critical these types of lifesaving machines are for patients and their families.
His background in IT — he worked in the field for several years after graduation — has also given him an appreciation for complex technologies. Now, after GE HealthCare machines helped him and Renata along their journey to parenthood, he’s even more passionate about the work he does every day. In his daily work he continues to install, upgrade, and repair equipment that’s critical to healthcare.
“Especially in public hospitals where many machines haven’t been upgraded, it’s so important to keep these machines working,” Fausto says. “There are lines of people that need these machines and their results.” It’s not uncommon for him to work well past typical business hours if there’s a critical fix that needs to happen.
“GE HealthCare is a place where I can grow a lot,” he says. “They appreciate me, and I’m so grateful to work at a company that both acknowledges me in my professional life and helps me in my personal life.”
