The sophomore slump post

First off, sorry for the first post. I just reread it and its exactly what I hate about blogs. I now realize that my goal is not to provide a daily update of activities, but instead synthesize my experience and hopefully provide some level of insight. I think I've been hesitant to write a second post because keeping an online journal just had no appeal. From here forward, I'll highlight what I perceive to be the highlights. It'll be interesting to see what themes emerge.

First month summary!

A friend suggested keeping a blog. Initially I wrote this off as a fairly strange thing for a 24 year old guy to do. But after considering the amount of exposure to new information/experiences I've had in the last month, it seems more and more reasonable. The CBID program has been throwing useful info at us left and right, and I've been doing my damnedest to filter and retain most of it. Hopefully discussing some of it in a blog will help provide myself and others with a bird's eye view of how great an experience this continues to be. So here we go, first attempt at anything like this...

One month in! It's been a wild ride so far. We started off with a couple days of orientation in late May then jumped right in to learning about the process of identifying clinical needs. I began with three weeks of ortho rotations at JHMI. We observed surgeries ranging from spinal fusions to total knee replacements. Although some were routine procedures, others were some of the most complex cases in the US done by some of the best surgeons in the US. Multilevel spinal fusions, removal of deep cancerous tumors, hardware revisions, sometimes all in the same case! Often cross-disciplinary surgical teams work together to provide the best care possible. In one case, I observed an ortho and neuro surgeon work together in an incredibly complex spine misalignment case in which the patient also had a tumor located near the spinal cord. We've also sat in on neuro cases including the removal of a tumor next to the pituitary gland and implantation of a deep brain stimulator to treat Parkinson's disease. The range of cases which all these surgeons can tackle is striking.

Last week, I started my rotation in EP/cardio/interventional radiology. This was a dramatic shift from ortho... The technology/engineering in the EP suite is nothing short of a NASA flight control room. The most common procedures done in these labs are ablations and pacemaker implantation. Ablation involves heating up tissue in the heart so that electric pathways can be intentionally disrupted. The instrumentation to ensure that the correct tissue is being ablated is phenomenally complex. CardioMap allows the surgical teams to make a 3D reconstruction of the heart. Then a catheter with a RF ablation probe is tracked in real time to show the location of the "burned" tissues. Its great to see engineering feats be so integral a part of healthcare. For the past few days, I've switched over to cardio surgery. We've observed catheter assisted heart valve replacements, aortic aneurism repair, and even open heart repair of a ventricular septal defect! 

That was an attempt to cram 25 days of observation at the world's best hospital into two paragraphs. I know I didn't do it justice, but its a start. There's a ton more to write about considering the brand new city, new classes, guest speakers, and global health projects but that's for another day. Enjoy the 4th!