Week 7

The last week of the immersion program started with a day in the clinic that involved the usual routine of interviewing patients. After this, I kept working on my literature review for the paper on the study and I managed to complete it throughout the week. I then compiled this review into a one page introduction for the final paper and then sent to my advisor for review. Since, Dr. Kennedy did not actually see any patients for the rest of the week, I took this opportunity to meet with other clinicians at HSS in order to see all of the work being done there. This led me to meeting with Dr. Suzanne Maher whose research is focused on the development of biomaterials for joint restoration. I talked to her about her research and met with some of the people in her lab to learn more about the projects that they are working on. I learned about one particular project that is not currently being led by anyone, which is focused on developing an intra-op sensor to measure the stresses in the knee for meniscectomy patients. This would be to see how the stress profile changes in the knee in response to injury and conditions such as osteoarthritis. I found this to be very interesting and actually met with Dr. Scott Rodeo to learn more about it and see what the difficulties surrounding the sensor would be. Dr. Rodeo then invited me to come into the operating room to witness a knee arthroscopy and a meniscectomy. This was an amazing opportunity which I am incredibly grateful for and I can certainly see now that this sensor has several design criteria it has to take into account in order to be effective. This concluded my time at HSS and I am certainly thrilled about this amazing opportunity! I feel my passion for the medical field has strengthened and I have learned a lot about myself, including that an MD may be something that I may be strongly interested in for the future.