This week I spent a great deal of my team reading up for my
project, medical journals were a little difficult to get through in the beginning
due to the various jargon, but now I think I have a much more firm grasp on
reading them without actually having to look up the definition of every other
word. This week we were able to sign up for MRI’s and have scans of body
locations of our choice. Naturally, I chose to have my brain scanned and was
able to see the result. There is something very meta about a brain wanting to
see itself, though that’s a discussion probably best left for another time.
As far as clinical rounds and patients are concerned, this
week I had more down time than previously due to the working on my project as
well as being given some time to go and do things in the city that I should do
before I have to go back to Ithaca. I did attend clinics still, however, and
was able to see a few patients. One in particular sticks out as it was fairly
emotional. A woman had been in a car accident and had gone to get a CT scan,
though she felt fine after the crash. At the behest of her kids, she chose to
go ahead and upgrade to an MRI scan; the results of the scan indicated that she
had a malignant glioma deep within her brain even though she appeared to be
asymptomatic. She is on chemotherapy regiment currently and the tumor has
appeared to shrink slightly in size, though Dr. Boockvar has indicated that it
will eventually become resistant and that it is inoperable with current
technology. Still, the woman has been given several extra months, possibly
years to her life purely because of a quick, seemingly unimportant decision.
This is likely the most important story I will remember from my time in the
immersion.
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