Ashley Cardenas/ Dr. Roger Hartl- Week 3

This week, I continued to shadow Dr. Hartl in the OR and clinic. 

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I spent the majority of the day in the clinic.  Multiple patients had a herniated disc and spondylolisthesis causing spinal stenosis. These patients are good candidates for our study on bone marrow aspirate. I was able to obtain 3 patient consents this week in which we will be harvesting patient discs and/or bone marrow. This week, I better understood why some patients were getting a microdiscectomy vs TLIF vs artificial disc replacement. I now clearly see where the problem areas are in MRI scans of the spine. 

Thursday and Friday, I observed Dr. Hartl in surgery. He performed multiple lumbar discectomies and TLIFs. I also observed a cervical intervertebral disc artificial replacement that I hadn't seen before. It was interesting to see how suppliers communicated with Dr. Hartl on implanting the artificial disc during surgery. 

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