Tyler McNeill - Week 7

It’s hard to believe that our time in New York City has come to an end as we finished the last week of our Clinical Immersion Term! During this week, I was able to shadow Dr. Bostrom in the operating room for one last day and was able to shadow him in clinic for the first time before he left the city to attend a conference in Memphis. I really enjoyed the time during clinic, not only because it was extremely rewarding to see patients make postoperative progress, but also because I was able to see the full journey of the surgical procedure. During clinic, Dr. Bostrom met with new patients that were coming for initial evaluation to see if they would be good candidates for joint replacement surgeries. It was really intriguing to see some of the different concerns that patients have when deciding if they want to move forward with surgery. One new patient asked about being able to get on her knees and touch her nose to the ground so that she would be able to pray following total knee replacement surgeries. I had never considered how different backgrounds and lifestyles could result in specific concerns for patients, so this was really eye-opening for me.

This week in the OR, I was able to see my first primary joint replacement surgeries. Compared to the revision surgeries that I saw last week in the OR, the primary joint replacement surgeries seemed much more straight forward to my untrained eye. Getting to see some of the minor precautions taken during surgery to best ensure that patients will not require revision surgeries was really fascinating. I think that these precautionary efforts—which seem so routine to the surgeon—have a huge impact on the surgical outcomes. This could explain why, based on some articles that I’ve looked over, it seems that orthopedic surgeries generally have a higher success rate compared to other types of surgeries.

Overall, the Immersion Term has been an incredible experience! It gave me a new appreciation for the impact that my work in lab can have over a longer term. Though it’s sad to be leaving New York City, I’m excited to head back to Ithaca and get back into lab!