Ellen Brooks/Dr. Robert Marx - Week 1

One action packed week complete already! The first few days of this week were filled with orientation meetings, introductions to Dr. Marx and his clinical team, and tours of the research facilities. 

On Monday, I started shadowing Dr. Marx, his resident Dr. Braum, and his PA, Joe, through clinical rotations. As a person that has been in the patients chair many times, it is fascinating to see the doctor-patient interaction from the other side and to start to notice how the Dr. Marx is able to connect abnormalities in flexibility and gait to possible diagnoses. 

I continued my shadowing of Dr. Marx late in the week in the Operating Room. Here I observed two total knee replacements, a removal of hardware from a previous, complicated ACL repair surgery, and an ACL surgery. The ACL surgery which I observed will be included in an on going research project to determine the optimal graft type (hamstring, or patellar tendon) for ACL repair and the benefit of additional stabilization of the tendon using an iliotibial (IT) band graft for patients that have high risk of re-rupturing of the ACL. In the OR, I was able to observe how many skilled people are required to make an operation run smoothly, and how research is conducted in a medical and operating room setting. 

On Thursday, I was introduced to the second portion of my work this summer which will be research with Dr. Chen and Dr. Singh in the HSS Research Institute. With Dr. Chen, I will analyze genomic data related to the compression of cartilage, looking for pathways that are upregulated and downregulated with compression. Such data can help indicate the chemical and mechanical changes occurring in cartilage under normal and injurious loading. With Dr. Singh, I will be analyzing histology slices of patellar fat pads for fibrosis and comparing the histological results (obtained from samples provided in the OR during total knee replacements) with ultrasound results taken of the pads prior to surgery. 

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