Week 6&7

These two weeks I observed several plastic surgeries with help of Bori and one of them I ranked the most impressive surgery since I have been watched throughout summer immersion. It is a brain tumor surgery which the tumor located behind the skull between brow ridges. This site of tumor forced surgeons to do open skull surgery which very horrified me. It also reminded me a surgical scene in the movie “face/Off” but now I saw it in real!!!

In the last week, with Dr. Frayer’s coordinating, six of us had an opportunity to observed aortic valve replacement surgery which is a very interesting and impressive. Once the pericardium has been opened, the patient was placed on cardiopulmonary bypass machine. This machine took over the task of breathing for the patient and pumping their blood around while the surgeon replaced the heart valve. When the patient was on bypass, an incision was made in the aorta. Then the surgeon removed the patient's diseased aortic valve and tissue valve was put in its place. Trans-Esophageal Echocardiogram (TEE) was used to verify that the new valve was functioning properly. The overall process took around 7 hours. It was not that long comparing to the 12 hour brain tumor surgery.

Lastly, I would like to thank Dr. Frayer, Dr. Wang, Belinda and voluntary clinicians who contributed greatly to make the summer immersion program happen. I gain a lot of experiences throughout the program. The program provided me a great opportunity to shadow many clinicians and to be around in the hospital to observe several clinical things which are all very fascinating and interesting. Moreover, living in NYC with my fellow BME students is a lot of fun. We all hang out and had a great time together. I will never forget these very great experiences here.

This summer, I believe, must be one of the greatest summers in my life!!!