Week 1 (re-post)

Im also not sure what we are supposed to blog about or where, so I guess here in the comments works. I have shadowed no one on rounds, seen no surgeries, gone to no grand rounds, or seen any patients. Instead, I spent the majority of my time in my mentor's office working on my research project broken up with short periods of watching him measure heart valve dimensions on an MRI. I was very bored and frustrated this first week. Luckily, I had to return to Ithaca Thursday-Friday to pick up a heart valve from a collaborator. When I retrieve human valves from the collaborator its during the valve replacement surgery so I get to scrub into an open heart surgery. I got infinitely more clinical action doing my regular Ithaca research than I have in this clinical immersion term so far. 

I should note that open heart surgeries blow my mind every time I see them. It is so incredible to watch doctors slow the heart down by literally putting ice on it, medically stop someones heart, bypass their heart and lungs with a heart-lung machine, and then rewarm the patient and have them make a full recovery. Seeing a patients beating heart right in front of me only to watch it stop then start up again house later is probably the coolest clinical experience Ive ever had. Also, the way bioproesthetic heart valves are places is really neat- they stitch in a draw string like tie all around the cusp of the prosthetic and the ventricular wall where the valve was and then just yank down. I did talk to the surgeon about a certain type of bioprosthetic valve that surgeons absolutely hate using as the cusp on the valve used to stitch into is too wide and cumbersome to easily stitch in and pull down. As a result of this device's poor design almost no one uses it. Made me think of the importance of seeing clinical practice in device and method design so that instances like that dont happen. 

My mentor does not really see patients as he is an imaging guy and mostly does MRI reads or works on his research. I've been pretty dissapointed with the whole experience so far. I requested to my mentor to see some more clinical practice and was dropped off at cardio cath lab so I got to see a cardiac catheterization for about an hour and a half. My mentor seems to want my research to be my priority and did not seem comfortable with me spending mornings shadowing other doctors to see clinical practice and has redirected me back to his office to keep working on the project several times. At this point, I would like to continue the research project with my mentor as its highly relevant to my actual research and a collaboration I wish to continue, but I want to find another clinician to shadow so I can actually see clinical care.