Week 2: Brenda

This week has been very busy, but also very exciting! On Monday I got to shadow at the clinic and watch Dr. Carli and his PA (hi Lexi!) attend patients. It was interesting to see and learn about how to greet patients a certain way due to religious beliefs or a patients preference. Kind of like reading the room. I then got quizzed on anatomy by my clinician, and learned a lot on how to prep patients for knee/hip surgeries. It is very interesting because the implants are not a one-size-fits-all type of situation, so there is a variety of hip and knee implant sizes. I also got to meet some of Dr. Carli's regulars and hearing them all communicate in Italian (I speak Spanish so I understood some words). 

On Tuesday I attended weekly meetings and got to do some work in the lab. I had a typo on my last blog post, I am working on PJI but on implants used in humans (not on mice)! So I will be growing bacteria on implants and understanding how to remove the biofilm completely off of them, kind of replication what would occur to a patient. I have been re-learning a lot of my microbiology lab skills - I have not really touched on them since when I took microbiology in 2017, but still excited I remembered a lot!

On Wednesday I shadowed Dr. Carli at the OR, it was my first time being in an operating room! I got to shadow both a hip and a knee replacement. I found it very interesting getting to learn the protocol before the operation begins. I was told that the operations sound like a construction site, and they do. Dr. Carli does a great job on keeping me in the loop during surgeries and will sometimes show me pieces of bone  being taken out of patients. 

Thursday and Friday are both lab days. Since I am working with bacteria, a few days is necessary to let them grow. I actually got to touch and get to feel the implants used in knee and hip replacement surgeries, they are a lot thicker and heavier than I thought! Overall, I learned so much on assisting patients pre-operation, post-operation, and during operation. Learning on how to fix implants on these patients, learn about anatomy from x-ray scans but also in real life at the operating table. 

My weeks here at immersion will look along these lines as its all on a fixed schedule with Dr. Carli.