Week 7

This is my final day here and I am really glad for the experience but I am ready to return to Ithaca at this point. I feel like this has been a very productive summer for me and I am sure that this will give me a better perspective going forward with my research. Being able to see the clinical background of the topics that we are researching has been very eye-opening. It has been very helpful for bringing me into the mindset of a doctor rather than from a purely research mindset.

My final week has been a lot of trying to tie up loose ends in terms of the paper that I have been working on. We think we have finalized (hopefully) the data and presentation of tables. There are just a few more things that need to be written and hopefully the submission process will start in the next few weeks or so. 

The overall message of the paper is going to be that mitral regurgitation affects patients' exercise tolerance, independent of factors that are known contributors (age, ejection fraction, stress test results) to decreased tolerance. We have also shown that the etiology of the MR is a determining factor in exercise tolerance as well. Patients with primary valve dysfunction are able to undergo more exercise than patients with ventricle-related MR (functional MR). This makes sense because people with functional MR have other deleterious effects related to their ventricular function. 

Overall, I am very happy with these results and I am glad that I was able to take such a major role in something during my time here. I feel very lucky to have had such a great combination of clinical and research experience, and I hope to be able to continue to collaborate with my clinician and others in the hospital further down the line.