This week did start on a slow note, with the long weekend affecting the pace of work. But very soon I found myself learning about a lot of disease states and picked up an impressive amount of medical terminology. So I was back in my fresh green scrubs seeing neuro-surgeries with Dr. Schwartz. One of them included resection of a left temporal lobe lesion. The patient was very old, suffering from aphasia and seizures. It was suspected to be a case of Gliomatosis cerebri which is an infiltrative diffuse astrocytosis. Another surgery involved a patient with aneurysmal bone cyst. A benign osteolytic bone neoplasm i.e bone spaces filled with blood and separated by fibrous septa. Before surgery, it was diagnosed to be a possible tumor, but afterwards the brain looked pretty healthy. So, the cyst was cleaned and covered up.
My research is progressing nicely and hopefully I should be able to accomplish a lot before this awesome immersion period ends. Recording metabolic changes in rat’s cortex with electrical stimulation takes a lot of time than I would have expected. Since, ‘All is well that ends well,’ I hope the same!!
My Friday was the best part of this week, as I got to follow Dr. Frayer for rounds in the NICU - Neonatal ICU. Babies everywhere! It was interesting to see these doctors, residents and nurses give a baby an all rounded -24x7 medical, emotional and motherly care with their expertise and state of the art technology. Most of them were prematurely delivered and still had their organs like lungs underdeveloped. Every possible health factor is taken into consideration for each baby during these rounds. These included respiration, weight, sleep cycle, amount of stool, infections, cardiac health, hematology, metabolic activity, neurology, nephrology, temperature, feeding, medications etc. One case involved a 8 day old baby weighing just about 7 grams suffering from patent ductus arteriosus, one could hear an abnormal heart murmur with a stethoscope. Another baby was suffering from Severe Combined Immuno Deficiency (SCIND) and was being diagnosed for a bacterial infection causing abscesses on the body. Although a heart wrenching scene to see multiple tubes and machines on a small child, yet it was comforting to know that most of them would evolve into healthy adults. So that is how my week ended, with questions bombarding my brain on how current technology could be engineered to make more comfortable and high speed diagnostic devices for the little ones..........
My research is progressing nicely and hopefully I should be able to accomplish a lot before this awesome immersion period ends. Recording metabolic changes in rat’s cortex with electrical stimulation takes a lot of time than I would have expected. Since, ‘All is well that ends well,’ I hope the same!!
My Friday was the best part of this week, as I got to follow Dr. Frayer for rounds in the NICU - Neonatal ICU. Babies everywhere! It was interesting to see these doctors, residents and nurses give a baby an all rounded -24x7 medical, emotional and motherly care with their expertise and state of the art technology. Most of them were prematurely delivered and still had their organs like lungs underdeveloped. Every possible health factor is taken into consideration for each baby during these rounds. These included respiration, weight, sleep cycle, amount of stool, infections, cardiac health, hematology, metabolic activity, neurology, nephrology, temperature, feeding, medications etc. One case involved a 8 day old baby weighing just about 7 grams suffering from patent ductus arteriosus, one could hear an abnormal heart murmur with a stethoscope. Another baby was suffering from Severe Combined Immuno Deficiency (SCIND) and was being diagnosed for a bacterial infection causing abscesses on the body. Although a heart wrenching scene to see multiple tubes and machines on a small child, yet it was comforting to know that most of them would evolve into healthy adults. So that is how my week ended, with questions bombarding my brain on how current technology could be engineered to make more comfortable and high speed diagnostic devices for the little ones..........
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