Week 1 - Alikhan Fidai


The immersion term is shaping up to be a formative experience for my academic pursuits. My clinical mentor, Dr. Roger Hartl, is out this week, so I spent Wednesday and Thursday shadowing Dr. Jaspal Ricky Singh. Dr. Singh works in the Center for Compressive Spine Care and the David H. Koch Center. I had the opportunity to watch cervical/sacral epidurals, radio frequency nerve ablations, bone marrow harvests, and stem cell transplants. My PhD focuses on characterizing the cellular composition of bone marrow aspirate and its efficacy for treating intervertebral disc degeneration. It's established that intradiscal injections of aspirates with higher stem cell populations lead to favorable healing outcomes. Dr. Singh demonstrated a new device used to extract bone marrow aspirate with a richer stem cell population. This would allow for direct injection of the aspirate without gradient centrifugation or other purification methods, saving clinicians time during procedures. Ultimately, this device can be used for treating degenerative disc disease and other degenerative orthopedic pathologies. 

Aside from research, the immersion term has given me access to one of the coolest cities ever! I got to ride a bike through Central Park, go to trivia night at a bar, check out Times Square, and run along the East River.

I look forward to seeing how my research and life in the city continue to evolve over the summer. 





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