Week One - Jenny Puetzer

For the duration of summer immersion I will be working out of the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) under Dr. Scott Rodeo. It is very exciting to be able to have this chance to not only do summer immersion, but to be able to do it at HSS which is ranked the best orthopedic hospital in the country. The chance to observe and learn about the orthopedic field from the best doctors in the country is definitely an amazing experience.

The beginning of my first week consisted a lot of getting all the paper work done for HSS. Later in the week I was able to go to grand rounds for the arthroscopy division, where I not only was able to see interesting cases discussed, but also witnessed a few debates between the doctors about if they should use bone scans to determine if an implant stem has come loose, if they will ever not use aspiration for a gold standard for testing for infection, and when they would suggest metal on metal hip implants in young females. Later that day I went to a tissue engineering meeting to see what research is going on here at HSS in the biomechanics department.

On Thursday I was able to meet Dr. Rodeo for the first time and we jumped right into seeing patients. All the patients we saw consisted of a knee or shoulder injury. It was interesting to see how each patient’s symptoms were different and how these differences then related to their MRIs and X-rays. I now feel like I know a lot more about how to read an MRI for the shoulder and knee.

Friday was my first day in the OR. I spent 8 straight hours going from one OR to the next to see a total of 4 procedures. It was very interesting to see how many people work in the OR and what each person is responsible for doing. I observed two arthroscopic surgeries and two surgeries where plates were implanted. There was one arthroscopic surgery on the knee and one on the shoulder. These procedures were very interesting to see the anatomy of the shoulder and knee, which I have learned about plenty of times in books but never actually seen in a person. The plate surgeries also consisted of one in the knee and one in the shoulder. It was very interesting to watch the doctors work together to determine the correct placement of the plates and screws through the use of multiple x-ray images while working.

It has been an excellent start to summer immersion and I look forward to everything I will see and learn in the coming weeks.