Week 1 - Daniella Fodera

Started off this week by meeting with both my clinical mentors to discuss the logistics and plan for my clinical immersion project this summer. At the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), I will be working with both Dr. Lionel Ivashkiv in Rheumatology and Dr. Scott Rodeo in Orthopedic Surgery to examine the role of inflammatory cells in chronic human tendinopathies. This week has already been extremely busy from shadowing Dr. Rodeo’s patient visits to getting trained on flow cytometry to processing our first batch of patient samples.

In particular, on Wednesday, I was ready bright and early to shadow Dr. Rodeo during patient visits starting at 8am. This was my first experience truly being immersed in the clinical experience. Throughout the day, Dr. Rodeo met with a wide variety of individuals, from as young as 14 to as old as 92. Most of the patients were seen for follow-up visits relating to knee injuries, including but not limited to ACL reconstruction surgeries, rheumatoid arthritis, and osteochondral grafts. However, all patient interactions following the same general format: SOAP (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan). Rehabilitation and exercise was a key theme of the day. Dr. Rodeo continuously stressed to the patients that pain should be their ultimate guide whether to pursue or forgo a particular exercise or movement. Another key mantra was “Treat the patient, not the MRI.” Overall, Dr. Rodeo's approach to patient care is very academic in that he formulates a diagnosis and treatment plan only after meeting with patients and subsequently reviewing their scans to avoid any preconceived bias.

Thursday and Friday were primarily spent in the lab attending meetings, planning and coordinating the human tendon study, receiving training for flow cytometry to examine inflammatory markers, and processing three human samples collected from Dr. Rodeo’s total shoulder and ACL reconstruction surgeries.