A Defining Moment

Every journey has a defining moment. A light that shines on moments of darkness.

Weekly Report 10/22/2018 to 10/28/2018

As selfish as it sounds, effort is always put in to reap something at the end of the obstacle course. Whether it’s a farmer harvesting the fruit he has fostered the the growth of or a scientist resolving a issue that is pervasive within the medical sphere. Similarly, a defining moment of our ISM journey is to create two semester long projects that are applications to the research we put in throughout the year. This past week was solely dedicating to solidifying those ideas and ensuring that we have a clear cut path set to achieving our goals.

My final idea came down to one of the most important and common cases of neurosurgery: traumatic brain injury (TBI). Whether it is gunshot wounds, concussions, CTE, or injuries from car crashes, TBIs tend to be some of the most common cases in neuroscience. However, despite the relative commonality of such scenarios, many people still remain unaware of the consequences which is frightening considering that full recovery requires a lot of commitment from the patient. For this reason, I decided to create an awareness campaign for concussions and specifically chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The goal was to find a knowledge gap that still exists within the field in order to counteract that issue head on.

Since this time around I have the help of my mentor, it should be easier to execute the original work on the level that it is meant to be at. With the following few weeks dedicated to mentor visits the development of the original work should be on its way to completion.