Week 2: Cardiac Clinic and My Own MRI

This week I have become more involved in one of the research projects that the lab is working on. I am helping to add to the patient population for a manuscript that was in progress when I arrived. I have had to interpret variables that were generated by the lab software from both nuclear stress tests and echocardiograms. This has been a useful endeavor as I have had to learn terminology and useful calculations for cardiac stress measurements. We are using these to get an overall picture of the patients cardiac reaction to the stress test. I have helped to add more than 1000 patients to the original 2500.

I have also had the chance this week to shadow a cardiac fellow in the cardiac clinic. This has been my first direct interaction with patients in terms of diagnosis and general checkups. It is very interesting to see the range of reasons that patients are referred to the clinic. It is also very good to be able to learn what it is like to get a patient's information directly from them, rather than another doctor. There were also a lot of patients that didn't show up to their appointments. More than half of the patients did not come, and apparently that is fairly common. I find that very concerning since most of these patients are coming in with concerns of cardiac health and their diagnosis could be time sensitive.

I have continued to view MRIs for both patients and volunteers this week. I was even able to volunteer myself for one of the cardiac MRI studies that the lab has ongoing. It was a very long and boring process; I even fell asleep briefly for a few minutes. The only interesting thing that happened to me while I was being scanned was that towards the end I began to get really hot since I had a blanket and some other equipment on my chest. So I came out of the MRI sweating, but cooled down almost immediately after getting out of the bore. It was really cool to see the images of my heart. It's a weird feeling to see that much detail of the inside of your body. It's very different to be looking at patient images rather than your own. Overall, it's been a good week with a variety of experiences.

Outside of the hospital I've been able to go around the city some more and continue running new routes around the UES and central park. One of the more memorable things is going to Times Square and getting some of the best tacos I've ever had in an unexpected place.