Week 1: The Start of My Summer Immersion

From the very beginning of my Ph.D career, I have been looking forward to the start of summer immersion in New York City. Adding to my excitement, I discovered in April that I will be working with Dr. Bradley Pua, who is an interventional radiologist with collaboration with my PI. Dr. Pua is hoping use our lab’s two-photon endoscope to image tissue from cancer stricken lungs. In addition to fluorescence images, he also aims to survey the lungs using a 7T MRI. The goal is to built a image database so that physicians and researchers can understand the lungs at different stages of the disease. This project is at a very early stage of development. For instance, the pulsed laser needed for the endoscope has not been shipped from our lab in Ithaca. As a consequence, I will not be able to see the completion of the database. However, I will be able to help the team during the acquisition of the MRI images.

On the other hand, I am currently planning with Dr. Pua in order to create a clinical experience that is tailored to my interest. We hope to set up weekly shadowing experience with surgeons from different departments. Unfortunately, this has not been accomplished since my advisor left for a meeting this Wednesday, and he is returning on Monday. In the meantime, I have been visiting the radiology reading room in where medical students and residents were learning how to diagnose patients. Following the teaching from a senior radiologist, I was astounded by the amount of skills that each of the instructors and students possessed. For my untrained eyes, every MRI, CT or radiograph images looked healthy. However, they were able to detect the most subtle abnormality in every scan. 

In addition to staying at a reading room, I was able to attend lectures that were given for residents or medical students. In one of the lecture, I was able to learn about the procedure for reading radiographs in patients with chest trauma. When presented with an image, I needed to first check that the lines and chest tubes were correctly placed. Bones and soft tissue were then scrutinized to find damage or dislocation. Then, the upper abdomen and diaphragm were checked. Finally, I would look at the lung pleura and mediastinum. In the end, I thoroughly enjoy the talk since it was concise, clear and didactic. In another lecture, I learnt the importance of knowing the anatomy. Since I did not know the anatomical names for many parts of our body, it seemed that the lecturer was talking in another language. Nevertheless, it was very informative for me to learn about the image modalities and settings that are needed for imaging the neck.