Week 4

This week was all over the place! On Monday I got to see 16 ACL repairs in 25g mice that a hand surgeon and a fellow in the lab performed. They didn't even need loops! It was really cool and useful to get a feel for everything that goes into doing animal work that I really hope I get to do in my PhD. I also worked in more of the MRI analysis this week and  shadowed Dr Rodeo in the office which was a lot of fun. There wasn't anything too crazy--a fair amount. Of tendinitis and post knee replacement checkups. Someone did have frozen shoulder where the synovium gets inflamed, and they inject that with steroids to calm it down. It's crazy how disabling it is! The patient couldn't even move their arm and it just came out of nowhere. In surgery this week I also saw someone get their patellar tendon relocated to reposition the patella on the trochlea. This patients trochlea was basically flat and their kneecap was in such an awful off center position just anatomically. Because of this they also had major cartilage wear and had to have a cartilage allograft put in. The surgery took awhile mostly to cut he proper amount of the tibia and position it using the fluoroscope. The patella was also anchored in medially by a tendon allograft too. It's amazing how much the surgeons can do to a persons anatomy. It seems like such a skilled but also creative process in trying to position it but without a patient by patient manual for how to do it perfectly. 

Another random lesson I've learned, get your MRI done at a really good place, images really vary in quality!