Thea Nikolaou/Dr. Solomon - Week 3

 During this week I followed Dr. Hissong in GI Pathology while they reviewed and signed-out cases. I got to attend the GI pathology consensus meetings which were interesting as the pathologists reviewed cases which they were uncertain about or needed a second pair of eyes prior to confidently sending out a diagnosis. I got to learn more about what GI pathologists get to see on a daily basis and the significance of their work in patient care. Something particularly interesting to me was about appendicitis which can sometimes be caused by tumors rather than simply being inflammation. This was an important note because if appendicitis was related to abnormal growth the patient would need to go back to the hospital for more testing and monitoring, but since appendectomies are typically emergency routine procedures the patients are long gone prior to the pathology diagnosis and they are difficult to reach as they do not usually have prior association with the hospital. 

On Friday, I got to spend most of my day in the Emergency Department and followed Dr. Mollinelli. There were many older patients suffering from chronic conditions that suddenly got worse and after consulting their primary care physicians were advised to head to the ED. I got to meet a few patients and learn about their conditions. I was also very impressed by the stroke emergency response which was a huge rush from the moment a stroke patient was inside the department with almost every nurse and ED doctor present at the site followed by several neurologists. Once the patient was stabilized they were then rushed for a CT scan. The main issue with strokes is the need for a quick diagnosis distinguishing between hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke as the treatment method for each is very different and can be detrimental to the patient if the stroke is incorrectly classified. Overall, I was very impressed by the rapid responses and patience of the doctors and nurses as well as the number of patients that are accommodated in the ED daily. 

For my research project, I was able to get the initial set up for R workbench as well as access the necessary databases. I started making some progress in my understanding of mutational signature analysis and how single base mutations can be found and classified using different R packages. I have also made progress in configuring the python environment to train/run the deep learning algorithm available on github to classify tissue type and determine tumor content in scanned pathology slides. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ana Witkowski / Dr. Bostrom Week 8

 This summer has gone by so fast! This week was mostly just wrapping up the summer. I went and saw a little bit more of the mouse gait analysis and acclimation. Learning how to acclimate the mice for the gait analysis is super important for the consistency of the data, as mice that haven’t been acclimatized to the treadmill have a much wider spread and learning curve over the experiment. We learned how the mice get tire after about a minute of running, even if you spread that minute out over a couple bouts of running, which was super important for the next couple days of acclimation.  I also got the opportunity this week to shadow in the Gait and Motion Analysis lab for a case. I have never seen the human gait analysis before, so I was immensely grateful for this opportunity! I spent the afternoon learning about the cameras and the calibration, watching a full PT exam, and then watching a gait analysis videotaping. There are 14 cameras, 4 force plates, and so many reflective s...
Read more

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...
Read more

Marysol Chu / week 8

  It’s hard to believe that summer immersion has come to an end.     The past two months were extremely valuable in expanding my knowledge of the clinical aspect of my research. I was able to build relationships with clinicians in the field actively working on clinical trials and allowed me to interact with patients and identify needs that still exist despite all the advancements that have been made in medicine.     I could not have asked for a better clinician to shadow throughout the summer. Dr. Gomez made sure I saw as much as I could not just within bone marrow transplant but with other clinicians in the hematology/oncology department. I remember the first couple of weeks were emotionally challenging because of the severity of the complications that some of the patients experienced. It was very difficult for me to see them and their families struggling but at the same time I could see the medical team fighting and doing everything they could for the patient....
Read more