Week 7

This past week I attended the weekly neurosurgery spine conference as I normally do, however this meeting gave me a new perspective to think about clinical interventions and pain management.  This was a unique talk for the weekly spine meeting, as doctors typically present unusual or complex cases to get second and third surgical opinions from their colleagues.  The meetings focus on patients that are presenting symptoms that may or may not match up with radiological films, so the necessary intervention is not obvious but the groups of neurosurgeons generally come to a consensus on what operation should be performed.

This past week was unique because a clinical psychologist presented on chronic pain management, but from a mental health perspective.  Dr. Alla Landa, PhD presented data showing how patients' mental status is highly correlated with chronic pain and the efficacy of typical interventions.  Dr. Landa performed studies where patients were put in situations where they either felt included or left out of a group, and recorded various mental and physical health parameters over time.  Her conclusions were to always make sure patients are in a positive state of mind prior to putting a patient "under the blade", as extensive interventions in the OR may be equally or less effective than mental health management.  Surgeons fit the law of the instrument adage: when given a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  The medical field as a whole needs to adapt to new findings such as those presented by Dr. Landa this past week, and make true diagnoses prior to planning interventions.  The human body is a complex entity with mysteries that modern science has yet to figure out, many of which are related to the brain and mental wellbeing.

I always welcome new perspectives to add to my understanding of medicine and science.  Performing basic science research often lends itself to become over-enthralled with very specific and niche experiments, but I try to keep my eyes and ears keen to the larger picture of what I'm trying to accomplish.  Immersion term has given me ample opportunity to learn about my research field from a variety of backgrounds, obviously the most common being clinical and interventional perspectives.  As a yearning entrepreneur and proponent of translational research, I hope to one day intersect my research with clinical use.  I know this can only be accomplished by truly understanding the needs of the patient, the clinical practicality, and engineering feasibility.