Week 4

 This week Dr. Spector's lab and the immersion students discussed the feasibility of 3D printing constructs using polycaprolactone (PCL). After discussing the pros and cons, we decided that it would be best to purchase a low-cost 3D printer that will be exclusively for PCL prints. The printer will arrive next week, so I will help with assembling it and testing out the PCL prints. 

In other news, there was one surgery that stood out to me this week. This operation involved cleaning out a surgical site that was draining more than expected. Believing it to be infected, the sutures were removed and the tissue was excessively cleaned. Several tissue samples were taken to determine what caused the infection. In addition, two antibacterials from a company called Biocomposites were mixed together and formed into a paste. This paste was then spread into a mold and was left to dry for several minutes. When needed, the antibacterials were removed from the mold, making gumdrops approximately 1 cm in diameter. These antibacterial gumdrops were inserted into the cleaned wound as the last step before closing the site once again. It was interesting to watch something being made and prepared during the surgery for the patient. Upon asking later, I also learned that specific combinations of the two antibiotics will impact the rate of degradation for the gumdrops as well as how it interacts with the surrounding healthy tissue. 

Biocomposites® | Florida | STIMULAN | Ortho Max

Similar to last week, I haven't been in the lab as much as I would like. I have high hopes that the introduction of the new 3D printer and experimentation with PCL will give me more opportunities to do research not only in Dr. Spector's lab, but also will help me later on when I return to Ithaca.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 1

For my first week of immersion I attended the OR's of a few different physicians as my clinical mentor Dr. Jason Spector of plastic surgery and reconstruction was on vacation this week. I was able to see three different hernia repairs, and one double mastectomy and bilateral DIEP flap.  I think my favorite thing I saw was the double mastectomy and bilateral DIEP flap. From what I understand, this is a procedure in which both breasts were removed and fat from the stomach is used to reconstruct the breasts. The novelty of the DIEP flap is that it does not require the removal of muscle which allows patients to recover quicker. Additionally, blood vessels from the fat in the stomach are left in tact and "hooked up" to corresponding vessels in the breast. All in all, the procedure essentially amounted to a breast reconstruction and tummy tuck. It was a 10 hour surgery that required multiple doctors and departments, as this was not just a purely cosmetic procedure- the patient ...
Read more

Week 1 - Samantha Bratcher

Image
Hi, everyone! My name is Samantha Bratcher. My clinical immersion is with Dr. Adam Talenfeld and Dr. Kyungmouk Steve Lee in the Interventional Radiology (IR) department. Although it's not very related to my field at the university (biomechanics/mechanobiology), the clinical experience has still been very interesting. The IR department is super friendly and all the clinicians have been very available to letting me shadow them. It's only been one week, but I've already learned a lot! Every day has been watching something new, from angioplasty to biopsy to embolization. I find it so crazy that they're able to thread a wire through someone's veins to practically any area of the body. It's always a bit crazy to watch. I got a video of a balloon angioplasty using this method. The balloon is inflated inside a person's veins to expand them and increase blood flow. The second video shows the veins and their quality. The rate at which the contrast dye flows through is...
Read more

Week One - Shenghao Tan

I am working with Dr. Mirella Salvatore from the infectious disease division. My research project will revolve around associations of COVID 19 patient clinical characteristics with their hostresponses throughout their hospitalization and recovery.   On the patient care side I have been following Dr. Ole Vielemeyer in ID consultation. A large part of the round is to discuss the choice of antibiotics, itsdosage and duration from lab results and examination reports. Some of the cases this week have been quite complicated and chronic; therefore, joint effort were required to provide adequate treatments. One patient had to battle both Crohn's disease and histoplasmosis, where the immunosuppressant and antibiotics used must be carefully considered to treat the histoplasma and maintain some immune system function, while not severing the GI tract. A part of medical care I learned that I haven't considered much of is the inpatient - outpatient transition: how is the treatments adjusted ...
Read more