First week

The Cornell summer immersion experience has been great so far. I want to thank all of the people who worked so hard to make this opportunity possible for us. Also, I want to especially thank Belinda for all her help in keeping things organized and getting us down here. So far the experience has been extremely insightful. During my first couple days of being in NYC I spent some time getting settled into the residence hall and figuring out my way around. All of the first year students got together for dinner on Sunday night at a local mexican-style restuarant called Cilantros, which was nice to kick off the summer experience. During Monday and Tuesday all of us participated in a short ethics course that emphasized the basic responsibilities we have towards patients in a clinical setting. It was interesting to look at things from the clinical perspective as opposed to the bench-side view I am more accustomed to.

During my time in NYC I have decided to work with clinicians in Ophthalmology, as this field interests me and is highly relevent to my current research projects. During my first few days in the clinic I spent my time working with my clinical advisor and the residents seeing patients. I found it extremely insightful to be sitting with the clinicians as they met with and diagnosed their patients. What was also interesting is that they used instruments with seperate observation optics that allowed me to inspect the patient along with the clinician. One case was an individual with a scratched cornea, which I have seen from pictures in research publications. However, it was intriguing to see it live and understand how such a problem is diagnosed. I am hoping to get into the OR sometime next week and perhaps see some LASEK procedures performed as well.