Week 6 – Garrett Beeghly

Clinical Immersion Week Six

Garrett Beeghly

I can’t believe that there is only one week left of my immersion term with Dr. Jason Spector in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Weill Cornell. This week, we saw a new application of the inflatable tissue expanders that I mentioned last week for a patient that had sustained chemical burns to her scalp. These burns limit the regions of her head that are able to grow hair. Dr. Spector implanted tissue expanders under her scalp with the goal of stretching the areas of her skin that have functional hair follicles. This will enable a larger area of her head to grow hair at the cost of reducing her hair density.

In clinic this week, we saw several minor outpatient procedures. These included removing a large cyst that had become inflamed, debriding an infected wound resulting from a mastectomy, and treating a recurrent keloid scar. We also followed up with the previous oral flap and Achilles repair patients to monitor the healing of their wounds and their rehabilitation via physical therapy. In lab, I completed the Brown et al. (2011) protocol for decellularizing adipose tissue on my current bank of patient samples. This coming week, I will section and stain all the samples I have embedded to validate the success of decellularization.

Outside of the hospital, we celebrated Emily’s birthday with tickets to see Wicked on Broadway. We also visited the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum that is currently housing an exhibit entitled “Nature by Design” that highlights how nature, design, and engineering have intersected over the years. Of note, the exhibit included several pieces from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard. It was interesting to see how concepts like tissue engineering and gene editing were being presented to a public, non-scientific audience. Finally, we braved the heat to explore Brooklyn Heights and Williamsburg during our last full weekend of the immersion term.

Celebrating Emily's Birthday with tickets to Wicked!