Week 4

Monday of this week began with patient interviews at the clinic and also beginning a literature review with the research project that I am working on with the other student intern. He is currently retrieving patient information from the medical database that deals with patient outcomes following either microfracture or synthetic cartilage implant treatments. My part is currently to review the current literature in order to begin forming a paper on the results of the study. The following day was similar in that it began with clinical work, however the later half of the day was focused on watching the surgery of emergency cases since the rest of the week was going to be for holiday since this was the week of the 4th of July. The first emergency surgery was of a patient who we saw in clinic the day prior, he had completely torn his achilles tendon and broken his tibia. The surgical procedure involved fixation of the fracture using screws and then suturing together the torn tendon. Concentrated bone marrow aspirate was also used in the tendon site to attempt to facilitate the healing process. This surgery was particularly interesting since the tendon was ruptured in a location that was higher up on the leg towards the muscle which doesn't happen very often. Being that the rest of the week was given as a vacation I took the opportunity to explore the city a bit further and ventured out toward the east river in order to see the 4th of July fireworks festival which was a very cool sight to see.