As of today, I've finished my first two days of my internship under Dr. Shindell. So far I've seen lots of patient visits, and even gotten the chance today to sit in during a meeting about new surgical tools for scoliosis surgery. All of the different patients and their conditions have my considering changing my project a bit. Currently I'm studying recovery following different types of surgeries, but I may change it to focus on sports related injuries and how they can be prevented, or something about the physical and psychological aspect of scoliosis.
As both of these seem important to me in society and personally, as I've suffered both. Considering that under my internship, I have already seen a lot of scoliosis patients, ranging from children to young adults, I think this is how I want to focus my project from now on, but after my day on Friday, I'll try and make a final decision.
Scoliosis can be treated with a brace or with spinal fusion surgery, for which right now there are different instrumentations that can be used. Many are trying to study which form of instrumentation works the best, however not a lot of people take into fact the emotional side of the process, which I think would be interesting.
Throughout my two days shadowing at the office already, I've seen how scoliosis can impact people's lives. Many people throughout the country have a curve under 10 degrees, but anything above is considered abnormal. There are even different types of scoliosis such as infantile or juvenile, that can be caused by different deformities, such as something genetic or a chiari malformation which causes syrinx in the spinal cord.
Hopefully by Friday I'll have a clear grasp on what I want to focus on for my project.
I am excited to see what you end up doing! Really any topic would be interesting, especially from the perspective of someone who has been through it.
ReplyDeleteThank you, and I agree! I think taking on a topic that is close and personal to me only makes this project more interesting and important.
DeleteKayla! I think scoliosis is a very interesting condition to research. As far as evaluating a patient's recovery experience, will you give them questionnaires with general questions regarding their life after surgery? I am excited to see where your project goes!
ReplyDeleteThank You! Due to HIPAA regulations I won't be able to send out questionnaires, so the focus is more based off of data that I'll collect through observation.
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