For my BME Immersion Experience I have chosen to work with Dr. John Healey, the head of the Orthopaedics Services Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He is the world leader in treating bone sarcomas and incorporates both clinical and research components into his career agenda. How his unit perform these surgeries is that they excise the tumor from the bone, partially remove any other bone that was affected or seemingly affected by the cancer, and then finally replace the mechanically unstable areas with a prosthetic device, which could be as extensive as a synthetic metal knee joint or just a frozen allograft to stabilize the femur, or some combination of the aforementioned devices (the possibilities for replacement are seemingly endless. remarkable).
My first two weeks have given me exposure to some of these surgeries. The first case that I observed as a man who was unable to bend his knee after previously having a sarcoma removed from his bone and an implant inserted to replace the bone. Since current MRI imaging techniques are unable to resolve tissue surrounding metal prosthetics, Dr. Healy and his colleagues have to diagnosis mid-surgery the next course of action. As an Engineer, I feel that this an area where improved technology can drastically affect the efficiency and outcome of an already very invasive procedure. For this particular case, they quickly uncovered a mass of fibrotic tissue growing around the implant, and then systematically worked to remove as much of the inflamed growth as much as they could. Dr. Healey's team is a well-oiled machine; this entire procedure was performed in just over three hours.
I was also able to witness the excision of a bone sarcoma last week. After a very methodical four hours, the surgeons were able to remove a huge mass of soft tissue about the size of a sea abalone from the patient. I gasped in awe as Dr. Healey walked towards me with this somewhat demonic slice of human life in hand. But calm and collected as always, he finished up the procedure by tying the specimen up and putting into a container for pathological analysis and cryo-storage.
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