Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Funmi - Week 3

Last week was really eye-opening for me, as I got to see how orthopedic surgeries were done in the OR. Having never been in the OR, I had images from Grey's Anatomy and House in my head. Interestingly, the scene was a lot less dramatic than on TV. I saw 2 knee and 2 hip surgeries. I was able to stand outside the sterile area and could watch through a camera what the surgeons were doing. I understand that there is a lot of skill and finesse that goes into these surgeries, but if I were to describe them in one word, it would be "carpentry". There were saws, and drills and hammers, and the only way to get the ball in the hip is to hammer it in. Thankfully, the patients are under anesthesia and are not able to feel any of the banging going on in their leg. Joking aside, seeing the surgeries really made me appreciate how engineering fits into medicine, and how an implant goes from being in a manufacturing plant to being in a patient. In fact, in the OR, there is always a representative from the company were each implant was manufactured to make sure that everything goes well during the surgery.

Apart from my experience in the OR, I have started to learn about my research project for the summer, which will be focused on FTIR. I will have more on this next week, as I learn more about the project.

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