week 6 Goff

This week was different from other weeks. Instead of sticking with just one specialty, I jumped around a bit. I went to rounds, surgeries and as always research.

I went to rounds in the ER, Labor and Cardiovascular surgery.

In the ER, I saw a patient with possible COPD and another with fibromyalgia. I learned that many doctors don't believe in fibromyalgia since there isn't a way to measure the levels of pain.

In Labor, I saw a vaginal birth, c-section, and a 3-D ultra sound. The c-section and vaginal births were interesting to watch because I got to see the two main methods that women can give birth. In both procedures, the doctors and nurses were nice enough to give us a blow by blow explanation of what was happening at why. It is very important to correctly pass and remove the placenta from their explanations. There are two methods that you can pass the placenta: "spontaneous" and "manual". The manual method involves putting your hand inside and removing the placenta while the spontaneous version just has the woman push it out. The 3-D ultra sound wasn't as impressive as I was hoping. They use two planes of view to recreate a third plane that they cannot image normally. I was expecting to see depth with the imaging technique due to the name.

I saw a cardiac surgery this week. During the surgery, the patient underwent and avr a bi-pass and an aortic replacement. I couldn't see the process very well due to the location of the surgeons and the large number of people in the room. I did get to see the heart once during the surgery and it was amazing. It was intersting to see how they chilled his head and blood before they stopped his heart to do the bi-pass.

My research is going well. I am working on my second project and I have almost completed the first fixture that will be necessary for the experiment. Next week I hope to discuss with my mentor the study and flush out the idea further.