Faith Muriuki - Dr. Spector - Week 1

 6/3/2024 - 6/7/2024

On Monday, all of the summer immersion students had a meeting with Cary Skudin and Dr. Kelly Gillen. In this meeting, they outlined important information about the summer immersion program and set expectations we need to fulfill. We also received our Weill Cornell IDs and had a short tour of the hospital.

After the tour, I had a meeting with my clinical mentor, Dr. Spector. This meeting included Jenny, India, and Julia, who also have Dr. Spector as their clinical mentor. During this meeting, we learned about Dr. Spector's expectations for us and received a tentative schedule of his activities. After the meeting, Dr. Spector showed us his lab and introduced us to its members. Jenny, India, Julia, and I then spent some time further introducing ourselves, discussing the current research happening in the lab, and sharing the research we are doing for our first year of Ph.D. and the research we are interested in pursuing during our time in Dr. Spector's lab.

On Tuesday morning, we met Dr. Min and Dr. Sabuncu, Dr. Wang, and Dr. Prince. The latter two joined us through Zoom while the other two were able to join us in person. In this meeting, we once again discussed expectations.

In the following days, we spent time shadowing Dr. Spector in the OR. We observed multiple interesting surgeries. Throughout the procedures, Dr. Spector and the medical students kindly explained what was happening and answered any questions we had.

Today, I am meeting with the lab members in Dr. Spector's lab to discuss my summer research project and to create a tentative training schedule. I am hoping to learn and use the specialized techniques that Dr. Spector's lab is known for in my research. I am extremely excited about this opportunity. After the meeting, I will attend the Spector lab meeting, where I am expected to present 2-3 slides introducing myself and my expectations for this summer to everyone.

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