Emily - Week 6

Monday:
I used my new skills to sack some mice, dissect out the lungs, digest the cells (no trivial task – I think I have blisters from all the pipetting), and plate them in media.
Tuesday:
I was in the ER for the morning, which included going to “morning report” in which I learned about the different kinds of anesthesia. The ER residents and fellows discussed and quizzed each other about the effects of the different levels (minimal, moderate, deep, general) on patient response, respiration, and cardiovascular function.
After morning report we all headed back to the Emergency Department, only to be greeted with, “We have a trauma case, everyone, incoming trauma. Prep for trauma.” A middle-aged woman had been hit by a car, throwing her through a storefront window. The whole process was intense, from when the EMTs arrived with the victim, through all the ER teams merging together in one chaotic, life-saving organism, to the CT scan that confirmed the locations of her various femoral and pelvic fractures.
The rest of the morning was House – style medicine, with fellows and residents taking patients’ history and vitals and reporting back to the attending. The attending would walk them through the logic of diagnosis, encouraging them to think outside the box, to consider all possibilities, and in all cases, assume illicit drug use until proven otherwise. That last was a bit of an exaggeration, but they have to be really careful due to potential pharmaceutical interaction effects.
In the afternoon I imaged my lung tissue sections for epithelial and mesenchymal staining, checked on my cells, and came back after dinner to start another round of the same.
Wednesday: I headed out to the Bronx to meet with a collaborator at Albert Einstein Hospital who is working on an endothelial cell isolation process that is similar to the one I use in Ithaca. I enjoyed dialoguing with the students in the lab, as we’ve experienced may of the same challenges and frustrations. In the afternoon I “met with” my Ithaca PI via skype, finished my staining, and rushed out of lab to meet a long-lost friend for dinner on the West side.
Thursday:
I finally got to watch a pediatric “cath”, which means they insert a long tube into the patient’s femoral artery (or was it a vein…?), feed it all the way up into the heart, and in this case apply a ventricular septal defect repair device to close off a stent. The case history was really complex, but essentially it was a follow-up surgery for a little boy that was born with Tetralogy of Fallot and was doing well enough to have his “pulmonary escape hatch” closed off so he could erly entirely on his own circulation.
In the afternoon I imaged my fluorescent lung tissue, fixed my cells, and attended the immersion meeting.
Friday:
Watched an aortic valve replacement/coronary artery bypass graft surgery in the morning. This surgery was great, because there were very few students in the room and the anesthesiologists were really nice about letting us stand at the patient’s head to watch. I had a great view – the coolest part was when they attached the homograft coronary artery to the patient’s heart – the delicacy and precision of the procedure was incredible. I felt bad for the patient, though… His whole heart was calcified, it seemed like. This surgery will keep him going for awhile, but he’ll probably need to be re-opped.
In the afternoon I focused on assembling my PCR plate, double-checking the concentrations and protein contamination levels, via spectrophotometry, and filling 360 tiny wells with master mix, primer, and cDNA. Tedious, but rewarding based on the sheer volume of data that results.