Immersion Week 2

Now that I better understand the layout of NYP as well as New York City as a whole, I feel much more at home and am able to focus on the goals of immersion.  The first week I felt like a deer in the headlights with the excitement of moving to New York, living in a new apartment, and trying not to get in anyone's way during operations.  Now that the dust has settled from the initial move, I have started becoming more involved in research and the operating room.

Understanding the various roles in the operating room is crucial to learning where to position yourself to observe the patient and see from the best angle.  I was initially shocked at how many people are needed to run a single operation, but now realize that each role is crucial to the success of the surgery. Most of the clinicians, nurses, and technicians are happy to have observers in the operating room as long as they don't get in the way, but finding where to stand was a challenge at first due to the massive equipment needed for most spine neurosurgeries I have been observing.

I could go on for days about all of the cutting edge surgeries I have seen over the past week, however one of the most memorable to me was the anterior cervical discectomy and fusion performed by Dr. Hartl.  During this operation, the patient was placed in the supine position and their neck was opened for surgical access.  Dr. Hartl removed degenerated discs at three cervical levels, and then implanted titanium cages in place of the biological discs.  He was great at explaining each step of the operation, and even indicated where the Bonassar Lab tissue engineered IVDs would come into play.  Dr. Hartl additionally flipped the patient to be lying prone and entered the neck posteriorly to insert smaller cages into the facet joints.  While the entire operation lasted 6 hours, it felt like only a few minutes as each step was like reading an exciting chapter in a long novel.

I am anxious to see what lies ahead during this summer, but I am fully satisfied thus far with all that I have learned in a short two weeks.