Last Week

The program has officially come to an end! I honestly cannot believe how much more I know about the medical system now than before the program started.

Update:
Here are some random assorted pictures from the summer!

Fleet Week in NYC when I moved into my apartment in the beginning of the summer


NewYork Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center Main Entrance


Olin Hall (Where our lectures were)


Wednesday seminar in North Brooklyn with guest speaker Rob Solano (right)

Seventh Week

This is perhaps my last week of full rotations. Beginning next week, I'm cutting down some rotations because I need to finish my final paper by the end of next weekend.

Other than that, week highlights:
Monday-I was shadowing a heptalogist in a Hepatitis clinic because my HIV rotation had ended. Very similar to the HIV clinic except patients are coinfected with Hepatitis and HIV. I heard an interesting statistic that African Americans have a lower recovery rate compared to Caucasians when using interferons (what is used to treat hepatitis), which suggests that genetics may also account for medical disparities. At night, I was volunteering in NYP and I observed an orthopedic surgeon putting casts on 3 patients. Very cool site because there were about 4 different types of doctors in the room doing their own thing to help the patient.

Tuesday-During my neurology rotation in NYP, a patient came in that is a doctor at Mt. Sinai and a Cornell alum. She was sharing stories with the neurologist on how the doctors would torture her during interviews. In the afternoon, I was at Woodhull shadowing a physiatrist in a prosthetic clinic. I never realized how deadly diabetes was until that day because 3 patients came in with amputated legs and we were trying to help them walk again with a prosthetic.

Wednesday-We had a lecture by Dr. Storey-Johnson who is the Sr. Associate Dean of Education at Weill Cornell. She was telling us about the 3 components of medical training: formal, informal, and hidden. I think the most interesting of all of them is the hidden aspect, which is the hidden meaning hospitals relay such as signs posted in only certain languages and the individuals that are selected for rounds.

Thursday-Saw another mouse perfusion for the 4th week in a row in my neurobiology research rotation. I'm starting to get used to the idea of headless mice..After we were done, I was taking pictures of stained brain sections using a camera-microscope for densitometry. The density is measured using a program called ImageJ, which the numbers are then put into a statistical software to determine if it is significant.

Friday-I was shadowing a rheumatologist at Woodhull and we encountered a patient who couldn't move his head at all after falling from a tree several years ago. The doctor had a medication to treat him that's about $1,000/month, but the patient is uninsured and he's planning to move back to Panama in several weeks. He was given the choice to stay and treat his condition if he's eligible for free medications from the hospital or go to Panama and hope that they have the medications he needs.

This week I also completed some of my NYC goals such as running across the Brooklyn Bridge and back. It's a lot shorter than I remembered, I think it took about 10 minutes just to go one-way. Also, I saw a movie being filmed yesterday called "arthur". Check it out whenever it comes out, the scene I saw was between City Hall and NYPD.

Sixth Week

Not much action this week due to 4th of July. Here's a recap though:

Monday-All clinics were canceled due to observance of July 4th. When I was volunteering at the Pediatric ER at night, it was SO QUIET! No one was in the waiting room and patients were discharged a few minutes after they arrived.

Tuesday-Quiet morning as well, the neurologist I was shadowing was teaching medical students and we only saw 1 patient. Surprisingly, I knew the patient's husband Yugo, who was on the panel last year when the Biology Scholars Program went to Weill Cornell for an Open House. Small world...

Wednesday-Guest speaker was Prof. Fein, who is the Professor of Clinical Medicine and Public Medicine at Weill Cornell. He had a very informative presentation on health care, which I really needed because I haven't been following the whole health care reform debate. As many of you are probably aware of already, PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) was enacted several months ago. I don't think he agrees with what is going on because he actually supports a single-payer health care system which is very much like Medicare, except Medicare is restricted to mostly the elderly.

Thursday-Very weird day, the doctor I was supposed to shadow was MIA. So I shadowed his colleague in the clinic. For the first time, I noticed today that the patients were really unaware of what their condition was and what medications they were taking, but I guess their excuse could be that they speak another language. Nonetheless, one patient that spoke English didn't know he was admitted to the ICU a week ago for a heart attack and any of the 7 medications he was taking. This certainly indicates that education may be a source of the disparities in medicine.

Friday-I was shadowing a rheumatologist in Brooklyn and coincidentally, his colleague returned today after recovering for more than a month from surgery (they never met). It was interesting to see 2 attendings go back and forth about their ways to treat people and new drugs they considered using. I also just learned that all the residents working in the clinic are from foreign countries. The two residents I shadowed today were from Bama (near Thailand) and Pakistan. They were telling me that they're lucky because they don't have to pay the ridiculous costs for US medical schools, but they have trouble getting used to the system in US such as all the technology which are rare in underdeveloped countries.

Hope everyone had a good July 4th, I spent my day in Coney Island. In case no one heard, Kobayashi jumped onto the stage at the Annual July 4th Nathan's Hotdog Contest. Check it out on youtube, its hilarious :)

Fifth Week

Kinda in a rush this weekend because of the holiday. Here are my week highlights though:

Monday- Last day of my HIV research rotation because my supervisor is going on vacation. For the rest of the program, I will be working in a Hepatitis C clinic and a HPV clinic in Chelsea rather than Upper East Side.

Tuesday- An elderly couple came in with a history of migraines. They just started botox injections several months ago to treat their headaches. The injections looked terrible because he stuck the needle around various parts of the head about 20 times. I'm pretty sure this would be a nightmare for people that hate needles, but I think the treatment is well worth it if the regular medications don't work.

Wednesday- Went to the United Nations for our lecture. The guest lecturer was from Uganda and he has some high position on the board. He was mostly talking about the Millennium Development Goals, which is a set of 8 goals all member nations hope to accomplish by 2015. So far, some of the goals have succeeded such as reducing extreme poverty.

Thursday- During my neurobiology research rotation, I saw another perfusion on 2 mice. (SKIP THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ SOMETHING GROSS) The PI first anesthetized the mice to a point they counldn't respond to simple reflexes. Then, he opened the chest with some scissors and inserted a needle sending paraformaldeyhe into the head while the heart was still beating. After the blood came out and the head stiffened, they cut off the head and removed the brain using scalpels. These brains would be kept for histology to be sectioned later.

Friday- I followed the rheumatologist I was shadowing to the detox unit for a medical consult. The area looked really secure because you needed a key to get in and get out. The patient we saw in the unit had purple fingers and the doctor told her that if she doesn't stop smoking cocaine, she will lose it.

And Happy Fourth of July everyone!