Week 4

This week I was able to go on rounds and observe spinal surgeries with Dr. Farmer . I will write about the ones that called my attention.
Dr. Farmer sees approximately around 11 patients every morning each of them with different pathologies. Each patient had MRI, myelograhs and x-rays results. For example, a 23 years old female patient who previously had a fusion on L4 experienced numbness on her legs after 10 minutes of standing. After Dr. Farmer observed her myelographs, he determined that she had a hernia above the fusion. He told her all the risk 9 with the operation and he specified that she needed to stop smoking, because it prevents healing of the wound.

Also, I was able to observe a cervical fusion surgery performed on a 41 years old male patient. This procedure lasted approximately five hours. After the excision of the vertebrae bone graph (allograph) was added. The bone graft was from Musculo Skeletal Transplant Foundation. The tissue is obtained from generous donors of the community.