Week 1: Adam

 I jumped right into the deep end of the clinical immersion program this week, starting with Dr. Spector's clinic on Monday. In the clinic we saw some patients for follow-up visits from previous procedures, as well as a few patients that are going to be coming in for their procedures later in the summer. It was  interesting to see the start of the planning process for various surgeries. Tuesday and Wednesday were spent in the OR, where I was able to see a mammoplasty and a spinal reconstruction. I also watched two tumor resections, and those patients will be returning for skin grafts in order to cover the site of the melanomas. In the meantime, the patients received synthetic skin grafts based on research performed in Dr. Spector's research lab, which will allow the site to vascularize before the autologous skin graft is performed. It was really valuable being able to see how research can make the jump to clinical applications. I also shadowed in the OR for a combined mammoplasty, liposuction, and fat transfer procedure. This summer I am hoping to study the effect of interactions between the immune system and adipocytes on the development of adipose tissue, so the autologous fat transfer was especially interesting. Dr. Spector is able to collect excess tissue and lipo-aspirate from procedures like this, so I got to watch the sample collection process. I even walked the samples from the OR to the lab and then watched some of the sample preparation process! Hopefully, I will be able to make use of these samples later on. While shadowing this procedure, I also got to learn about the techniques that are used to concentrate fat from lipo-aspirate for an autologous fat transfer. Thursday was another clinic day, and Friday will be spent in the lab laying the groundwork for some experiments in the coming weeks.