This week was a bit different from the last two weeks. I focused
more on my research project compared to the clinical aspect. My primarily
project is to go through the database of bladder cancer patients who have
cystectomy surgeries. My job is to compile the information such as: TURB (
Transurethral resection of the bladder) results, surgery pathology results (
tumor grade/stage, present of CIS, STSM..etc) and the current status of the
patients ( whether there are local/distant recurrence of the cancer). Initially,
I thought it would only take me no more than 1 week to finish the work since it
didn't sound very hard and
time-consuming. However, it is more complicate than I expect due to the lack
of understanding of the treatment process of bladder cancer. For example,
why some patients got converted cystectomy not robotic cystectomy? Why we
care the presence of CIS, STSM? Why doctor still wants to operate
cystectomy even thought patients already got chemotherapy and their tumor were
under T1? I need to keep asking the fellow in Dr.
Scherr's team lots of questions while working, and I think I
definitely learned a lot from this work.
Beside the project, I also attended some meetings/lecture this
week. On Monday, I went to Urology department grand
run. Two residents presented two difficult clinical cases they had recently.
They described the case, presented
literature relevant, and showed the ideas how they
can improve it if the same thing happens next time. On Thursday, Dr.
Prince also gave us a lecture on medical
imaging and diagnostics. He taught us the procedures and methods to read
images, such as X-ray, CT or MRI. It was my first time to read these images and
I had really limited knowledge of it, but Dr. Prince used case studies to get
everyone involved. I really enjoyed his lecture and be more familiar with
these intimidating images.
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