No Time to Waste

The clock is ticking as Research Showcase approaches and time will go by faster than anyone expects. We are almost one semester through the year.

Weekly Report 11/06/2017 to 11/12/2017

This past week has been one in which most students may have wrongly perceived as an ¨easy week¨, however the turmoil of work approaching in immense with the research presentation approaching early this coming week, the original work proposal, more interviews, and the baby steps towards officially formulating the past research that has been done into a product.

The week started with research presentations in which many of us got the opportunity to watch an ISM II student in order to attain a base-level idea of what was to be accomplished in this speech. Through observation, it was evident that a primary aspect of these speeches was the flow from one slide to another. If I noticed anything, it was the skill of transitioning from one slide to another in order to ensure that the presentation flowed rather than being a book report and jumping from one topic to another. With my research presentation coming up the following week, it was time to begin formulating ideas as to what would be included in this presentation and in what manner would it be organized in order to effectively transition from one part to the next as if I was telling a story. The task of an eight to ten minute speech shouldn't seem daunting as the past year was spent in AP Seminar producing eight minute speeches; however, the variance in the context makes a huge difference. The ability to fully engage your audience holds greater pertinence in ISM speeches and the method of delivery is also highly essential to an effective speech.

The prime highlight of this week was my interview with Dr. Wayne Gluf of UT Southwestern. His insight into the medical field and neurosurgery specifically was much different in comparison to the other doctors that I had spoken with. Dr. Gluf had years of experience as a Naval officer and as a US Navy diver and from there he attended a Navy school in which he received his medical training. It was interesting to hear his insight on the transition from working in the Navy to becoming a surgeon as he spent a significant part of his career in serving the country as he treated multiple patients from who has served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. However, he did say that the variability of wounds is not much of a difference in comparison to the patients he treats now because by the time these men and women were transported to the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, the severity of the issues had gone down. Dr. Gluf´s experience was fascinating as he not only has worked as a neurosurgeon but also published multiple articles on the topics of his clinical interest which lies in complex disorders of occipital-cervical C1 and C2 cavities. He stated that his interest aroused due to the complexity in treating such surgeries in such a vital area of the body as the C1 and C2 cavities lie in the upper spinal area where surgeries can become very comprehensive. Through this interview, I learned the expanse to which a doctor can go and it is not all working in a hospital trying to combat every single functional disorder that you get called for, but there are so many other opportunities. Dr. Gluf said that not only does he spend time with his wife, but in addition to that he speaks at multiple convention centers on his clinical interests, has published multiple articles, co-founded a multidisciplinary neuro-oncology center, and he also teachers student in medical school down at UT Southwestern. In addition to that, he said it's important to give attention to your own body in that he works out five times a week. Understanding how he balances out his life really inspired motivation for me especially with so much to do in the next couple of weeks, it is important to manage time wisely. The most important factor of this interview was understanding the progression of his career towards becoming a neurosurgeon. If anything, these interviews have been the most inspiring process of my ISM journey by far because it brings a one on one insight into being able to understand the hardships and all the hundreds of factors that go into becoming a doctor, but also the hundreds of rewards that come from saving a patient's life and in the field of neurosurgery every situation is critical to a patient´s health.

It truly is satisfying to learn that these past few weeks doing interviews has increased my inclination towards neurosurgery and not brought it down at all. However, one thing that took me to surprise was that every single doctor said the same thing when asked what would you do in my position and all of their responses revolved around the same answer which was ¨get your nose out of the books and begin exploring multiple fields of study¨. I did not expect this answer due to the demands of studying required for neurosurgeons, but they all reassured me that I would get me division of that experience during residency in which are not foreseeable.

Time is going faster than anyone would have expected and yet there is so much to still accomplish in this journey towards accomplishing so much in my ISM journey. It has definitely been very difficult to obtain interviews and begin the process of studying this topic due to the intricate wording of all neurosurgery related studies. However, with more and more insight into this topic of study, I have begun to narrow down my interests in research and begin developing ideas towards original work in possibly conducting some form of research on spinal deformation or brain deformation in which parts of the brain and spine are lost once they are operated on and will never grow back.

Overall, this week has been difficult in organizing what work needs to be done prior so that I am not overwhelmed when prime time comes of developing my original work. It has been an interesting week of developing work towards the original work as well as getting an idea of what subspecialty of neurosurgery I want to go into. The time has begun to speeding up the process and formulating research and there is no time to waste