Ellen Brooks / Dr. Marx - Week 7

 I shadowed Dr. Marx in the clinic and OR again this week. In the OR, he had only ACL reconstructions, but a few surgeries that posed difficulties. In one, there was a radial meniscal tear that did not appear at all on the patient's MRI. The tear was able to be repaired, but was not planned for at the start of the surgery and made the whole process take significantly longer than anticipated. 

While in the OR, I talked to one of the nurses in training. She was explaining to me how she had to be proficient both being a scrub tech and being a circulating nurse. That's  a lot of information to know! She also walked me through some of the steps of preparing the room and documenting the surgery process. This summer immersion program is meant to give us a clinical perspective to influence and support our PhD work. A lot of this perspective comes from the surgeon and I have certainly learned a lot from Dr. Marx. In talking with this nurse in training, I also learned how much more there is to the process than just the surgeon's work!

I also completed and gave my immersion presentation this week. I got some good questions at the end. One question related to the use of cadaver tissue for my genomics work and how, if the individual is no longer living, can the cells respond as if they were living. Though out the summer of sorting through this data, I never even considered this question. Later, I asked my research mentors and was informed that the cartilage was harvested immediately after death and as such, the cells were still viable and able to respond. I also worked on modifying my presentation to prepare for a lab meeting next Thursday. 

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