The Imminent Moment

The event is officially approaching and the days are slowly progressing with increased attention towards to "to-do" list for the next few weeks in ISM. It is almost here!

Weekly Report 12/11/2017 to 1/2/2018

The countdown officially begins for January 17, 2018 and with the days going by the time left to prepare for research showcase is also declining. With the past week off for winter break, research towards the original work was the main highlight of the break. The research has been mainly focused on the basics of malpractice in general in neurosurgery and it was not surprising to find heightened statistics of malpractice within the past several years. However, this is evidently not simply the mistakes of surgeons who have been through school for a daunting sixteen years, malpractice rates must also take into account the intricacy of the surgery and the room for mistakes. Brain surgery is immensely difficulty as each connection in the brain is responsible for mobility or sensory or even memory. If a single connection is cut, even by accident, there is a chance for life long impairment. Often times, surgeons are not aware of what exactly the procedure plan is until the physically see the patient on the surgery table which is yet another reason for the high malpractice rates. With this in mind, I took it upon myself to create a treatment plan for one specific area of malpractice which is in brain tumors, specifically pediatric gliomas.

The research primarily focused on pediatric gliomas, types of gliomas, treatment types, and the factors that contribute to the decision of an individualized treatment plan. Although every patient is different, there is a baseline consensus of where certain types of tumors are located and what must be done for that tumor to be treated efficiently. For example, a low grade glioma tends to be a tumor that can be resected completely due to the slow growth of the tumor. However, a high grade tumor cannot be completely resected as it tends to spread to other areas in the brain or even in the whole central nervous system (CNS) and in this case only a partial amount of the tumor can be resected while the rest must be treated with radiation therapy or chemotherapy. The ultimate purpose of this original work is to ensure that patients and their parents understand the treatment plan and why their tumor is being treated in such a way. The research also entails a method to finding out whether certain forms of treatment may allot less impairment post surgery. Many patients lose certain mobility, sensory, or other abilities to think post surgery due to the sacrifices that must be made during surgery in order to make sure a larger burden is not enforced upon the patient.

With this in mind, I spent several hours simply researching on the topic of pediatric gliomas to understand the different treatment options and the best suited treatment for each of the different types of gliomas. I found correlations between specific tumors and the best treatment option; however, I have yet to find data on whether on the deficits that are caused by surgery post surgery. That will continue to be the focus of my research for the next few weeks as well as creating a prototype primarily for modeling the research in a visual spectrum.

In addition, to the research process, the invitations have officially been printed and are ready to distribute. The research display board has been finalized as to how it will look and the materials are slowly accumulating and have been tentatively placed in order to formulate how the display will look on research showcase day. The days are counting down slowly and the display board is due within the next week in addition to the binder portfolio. The portfolio has been updated as of the fall conference, but there are still minute corrections that must be made to the portfolio to make it more professional in appearance and ensure that all the documents are free of grammar or writing errors.

The difficulty as of now is still the mentor issue and approaching Dr. Braga as a mentor. Since it has been so long since I have been awaiting Dr. Dickerman´s response, it is still unclear as to whether or not Dr. Braga is already mentoring someone and if he would have the time to mentor me in addition to all his other work. The weeks are running out and Dr. Braga has finally been contacted as Dr. Dickerman seems to be very busy especially with the holiday season and getting a hold of him has been difficult.

We have begun to rap up the first semester of ISM and the journey has been absolutely fascinating by far and I have gotten opportunities that I would have never thought of doing before. Pursuing a career on such a level at this age is an opportunity that not many people get. I know the difficulty of approaching doctors; however, with the aid of this program it has been easier to obtain interviews and talk one on one with an actual neurosurgeon. The experience is truly unreal and has been a large platform to learn more and more day by day about this topic. It is truly fascinating how despite the whole semester being spent on research, I have not lost even the slightest amount of interest in this topic which makes it more likely that this is something that may be pursued

in the future.