Week 2: Teagan

This week, I got the opportunity to start the clinical aspect of the immersion term. On Tuesday, I was able to meet Dr. Bostrom to discuss my research background and schedule days to shadow in the operating room (OR). In the afternoon, I was also able to go to the clinic with Dr. Bostrom and see how he interacts with patients. Dr. Bostrom is an orthopedic surgeon focused on hips and knees, so I got to observe both pre-operative consultations and post-operative check-ups for those cases. Some of the post-operative appointments focused on addressing pain and discomfort experienced by patients as a result of the procedures. It was interesting to see the steps the team took to understand how to best help their patients heal better and faster. One thing I noticed was that at each appointment, Dr. Bostrom sat down to be at eye level with each patient and made sure to address all their questions/concerns, ensuring they didn’t feel rushed.   

I also observed surgeries in the OR on Wednesday. I got the chance to see a total knee replacement, a total hip replacement, and knee revision surgery. For these surgeries, they create a sterile zone by pulling out panes of plastic to section off the part of the room used for the operation. When I observed, I stayed on the outside of the sterile zone and was free to move around to view the operation from different angles. Dr. Bostrom was able to do the total hip and knee replacements in about 30 minutes, which was much faster than I was expecting for such an invasive procedure! The revision surgeries took much longer, ~2 hrs.  

For the research portion of this experience, I downloaded the appropriate software and got trained on how to operate the 3D printer by Dr. Chen. I also continued working on my mouse facility training to get access to the Faxitron x-ray imaging machine.