Week 5 – Garrett Beeghly

Clinical Immersion Week Five

Garrett Beeghly

It is hard to believe that five weeks have already passed of my immersion term with Dr. Jason Spector in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Weill Cornell. This week, in the OR, Dr. Spector assisted with a lobectomy and rib removal for a pediatric patient with Ewing’s sarcoma. If the patient remains disease-free after six months of adjuvant treatment, Dr. Spector will also assist with placing titanium-based prosthetic ribs to help reconstruct his chest wall. This is the second major surgery the patient has undergone to remove his cancer following a previous shoulder disarticulation. While his prognosis is not positive, my mother underwent similar treatment for osteosarcoma as a teenager. After a hip disarticulation, rib removal, and lobectomy, she is still disease-free 40 years later. I hope he will be able to say the same. In other OR news, the fibula flap procedure that Dr. Spector has been preparing for over the past weeks is now officially scheduled for the last week of July.

In clinic, we saw a patient using an inflatable tissue expander to create additional skin for future grafting procedures. The patient sustained severe burns and needs skin grafts to resurface his face as a result. The best match—in terms of color, texture, hair—for facial skin is neck skin. However, given the large surface area of his burns, he does not have enough available neck skin for grafting. Therefore, Dr. Spector implanted tissue expanders on each side of his neck that will be slowly inflated over the coming weeks. These expanders will stretch his existing skin and prompt the formation of new skin. This excess skin will then be harvested to graft over his facial burns. Other cases in clinic included a follow-up with a cancer patient that underwent reconstruction of her oral cavity after tumor resection, removal of an irregular skin mole, and an elective blepharoplasty.

Outside of the hospital, we took the aerial tramway to Roosevelt Island to explore and watch the sunset over the East River. We also visited the Tenement Museum to learn about the lives of immigrant families from the 1960s to 1980s, as well as the history of garment manufacturing in the Lower East Side. The museum included an interactive tour of three tenement apartments modeled after those common during the twentieth century. I would highly recommend the museum to anyone interested in the history of immigration is the US. I am looking forward to making the most of my last two weeks in the city!

Sunset over the East River viewed from Roosevelt Island.