Week 5 Jess Orton

This week involved the usual routine of office hours in the clinic, surgery in the OR and some time in the lab afterwards. In the clinic and OR I continued to see some recurring patients of Dr. Spector as well as new patients. In addition to human surgeries with Dr. Spector, this week I was able to observe a rat surgery performed by the Spector lab. This is part of their ongoing ear cartilage research project, and involved 3D printing ear "cage" constructs and then filling them with either minced or zested cartilage (below, top). The ears are then inserted under the skin on the back of a rat surgically and will be left for a year and then evaluated (below, bottom). It was neat to see the constructs being inserted, as I've helped out with this project a bit (let me know if you need some cartilage zested).