Week 5 - Nathaniel Wright

During busy past week I have been able to make significant progress on my work with strain analysis of the LA. This analysis is done with Tomtec that allows us to measuring the strain over a heart beat. This is done through speckle tracking and our own inputs to the system. Speckle tracking is a technique that looks at where the initial points are in relation to the next image. This technique requires the points to be placed correctly and also for the image quality to be of a high enough quality that the points can be tracked. On echo this can mean more fine tuning is needed for each case to ensure that the strain can properly be tracked. The points are set for the end diastolic and end systolic frames and these are the points that should correspond to the maximum and minimum strains. 

Additionally this past week I was able to go to clinic with Dr. Kim. In the clinic I was able to see a variety of cases from people who had just come in for heart problems to those who had been there many times. Some were coming in after having visited the Cardiac Catheterization Lab where they received stents, one of which was extremely grateful for the work that was done. He was just make sure to the tell thanks to the doctor who saved my life. This is a very human side of medicine that is often not seen when just a university studying biomedical engineering. The purpose of all the work that is being done is not just to teach the doctors but it is to help save lives. There are some things that are less serious while there are other that are also more series. But in the end all of the work is with the intent to improve quality of life and the length of life.

This detail while small is one I would like to focus on in the future. While everyone has their own research goals I do want to be able to help others with my own work. The human component of this work is something that can truly be satisfying.