Week 5

This week I started to draft the report that is due for this "class"; mainly to summarize to myself what I have achieved so far and to help strategize my efforts for the final 3 weeks. As I mentioned in my previous posts, my experience so far has been very clinically-oriented but light on the research side. Initially, I didn't mind this balance because I was telling myself that I had the rest of my PhD to do research in a lab. Though doctors will rightly argue that "every case is different", I must admit that after a month on the floor and attending 4-5 surgeries a week, my inexpert eye was seeing the same procedures over and over again. For instance, as of the end of the 5th week I attended 4 CABGs, 6 valve replacements, 2 robotic valve repair, 5 TAVRs, 1 pediatric case and 2 lobectomy. The excitement of being in the OR is still there, nevertheless, but I do not feel at this moment that the research I do is helping me further appreciate what I experience in the operating room.

The research I do for Dr. Salemi is moving forward slowly. The dataset he gave me contains a lot of different types of variables. I spent a lot of time understanding which statistical method to use and whether all the assumptions held. The dataset is also in part incomplete and I think I will need to rely on non-parametric testing. Throughout my eduction in Switzerland, I develop a sense of mathematical perfectionism and a phobia of wrongly using mathematics. Therefore, I cannot use a statistical test without fully comprehending the underlying mathematics.

Lastly, although I know I should take this summer immersion "as a sabbatical from my Ithaca research" (dixit Prof. Wang), I did some reading about RNA-seq analysis for my project "back home".