Week 6:

I spent much of this week working on my case study because my clinician mentor is out of town. To do so properly, I met with the design engineer of this specific prosthetic device and we went over a number of questions I had regarding the implant. What I expected to be a long conversation to sort out the details of the design turned out to be relatively quick. The patient’s proximal tibial component was retained from his previous surgeries based on intra-operative assessment of fixation, leaving only a distal femoral piece to be replaced. I realized that more in-depth questions I had about the patient’s bone quality were probably not directly addressed. This led me to think about how the aspects of my research in Ithaca could one day improve the long term predictability of implant success. One day, as in many days from now. But for example, this patient is the first of his kind and any additional information about his bone would inform potential complications in the short- and long-term. What’s really missing is a clinically dependable characterization of bone quality and its correspondence to prosthesis outcomes. That’s a lot of work but it seems logical to me. I also began to think about previous conversations I had with Dr. Lane. One afternoon, in between surgeries, we had lunch together and he asked me (again) what I planned to do after getting my PhD. I said “industry” as I always do. Naturally, the follow-up to that answer is somewhere along the lines of “What do you mean?” I’ve always considered prosthetic device companies as my go to example but now I feel like that’s because I didn’t (and still don’t) know how much else is out there. Therefore, I resolved to take a more curious look into what companies are doing with respect to prosthetics, bone substitutes, bone cements, etc. More importantly, I want to evaluate it in terms of what I’ll be doing for the next 4 years. I know the research I do doesn’t necessarily have to dictate my job, but I joined the lab I did because I’m interested in the research questions. It would be ideal to investigate those after the fact and I think that immersion has convinced me of that while also broadening my understanding of how I can do so.