Week 1: Surfing Into Summer

Departing from a friend's wedding in a beautiful town of Connecticut, I arrived in New York City with a giant suitcase that contains all my living items for the next seven weeks. Having been to NYC many times, it was still very exciting to see the concrete jungle with bustling life that is in great contrast to the quite little town that I had been living for the past two years.  In the first couple days, I hanged out with my friends exploring the interests of the city, Korean town, central park, time square, etc. We set our footprint in these famous interests and had a glance at the splendid content of this great city.

My first meeting with the mentor, Dr. Michael Cross, was assigned at the late afternoon on Tuesday. Despite no previous contact, Dr. Cross provided me with the instant opportunity to the clinic: meeting with the patients that were looking forward to receiving total hip replacement surgery in the next few weeks. It was sad to hear about the pain the patients had been suffering and the great inconvenience to them and their families. Dr. Cross show great patience in answering questions with his expertise and comforted patients with promise that they will restore the function after the surgery. According to his surgery assistant, Dr. Cross thinks highly of the communication between the doctors and every single patient. He appreciated time staying with them to collect as much information as possible and always went through with them for the entire recovery stage. It is the professional expertise in combination with the meticulous services system that renders the HSS with reputation in the orthopedic field among the States.

The following days of the week were scheduled with mainly two types of surgeries: total hip replacement and total knee replacement. It was very impressive to see Dr. Cross jump into the operating rooms one after another surgeries with very few breaks in between. After watching five surgeries, Dr. Cross told me I can go home for the day, and then he went into the OR after a 2 second break for the last surgery which last until 9 pm. His vigorousness and enthusiasm certainly established a role model for the doctor duties.

Besides his daily work on patient surgeries, Dr. Cross also collaborates with many research teams on developing new technique/materials for orthopedic surgery. One of the main project currently undergoing involves the translation of  patient CT/X-ray scan information into in vitro 3D model for developing personalized treatment. I am excited to have the potential to apply my knowledge of material science into this field for a summer research project.