Haoyang Du - Dr. Theodore Schwartz- Week1

As my first week of the summer immersion, I met with Dr. Theodore Schwartz in person on Thursday morning right before the surgery on the epilepsy patient. It was a busy week for him but he was still very welcoming and led me to the OR front desk. The lady at the front desk helped me to get a scrub and lead me to the locker room. After changing, I was led to the OR unit where the surgery is happening. 

This was an electrode implantation surgery for an epilepsy patient to better monitor seizure propagation. A whole team of doctors and nurses was running the surgery and preparing the patient before Dr. Schwartz got there. The time I have arrived at the room, the patient have been anesthetized already and her hair at the surgery location has been shaved off. With Dr. Schwartz being the main surgeon for this surgery, there are two other surgeons assisting him. One of the surgeons was doing the surgery site preparation and the other surgeons was there to hand over tools when needed. The surgeon cut opens the skin at the surgery site after disinfecting the area. Dr. Schwartz came in to the room and worked with the other surgeon to detach the muscle tissue from the skull and then removed the skull of the patient. The dura of the patient was cut open and lifted up to expose the cortex. A team of neural electrophysiologist then helped to distinguish the correct positioning of the electrodes and tested out the functionality of each wire. Most of the electrodes were placed at the surface of the cortex, while there was one that is insert in to the gray matter of the brain. The dura was then sutured back, with the skull pieced put back and the skin closed by tissue stapler. This is a fast surgery that only took 3 hrs. 

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