Tyler Locke- Week 7

 This week was spent finalizing some of the literature review I did, and creating my final presentation. I will be presenting on what I learned about this condition clinically, and on some of the background work I did for doing some preclinical investigation back in Ithaca. I also took a brief trip upstate to buy a car, which was successful!

Additionally, Anna and I got to shadow an open heart surgery in the OR on Thursday. We got in early to meet Dr. Joshua Goldberg before he started the case, and he and his fellow gave us an intro to the OR (where to stand, who to talk to, etc.), and the case they were doing. The case was a full aortic arch replacement to treat an aortic aneurism proximal to a previously placed bovine aortic graft. The patient's previous surgery presented some difficulty in opening the chest, but it went smoothly. Once the patient was put on cardiopulmonary bypass, the aortic arch was removed, and the new graft was placed. This involved suturing the graft to the ascending and descending aorta, as well as the brachiocephalic, left carotid, and left subclavian arteries. It was amazing to see how precisely the surgeon was able to sew all those vessels together. We also got to talk with the anesthesia team about how they manage the patient during the surgery, which was fascinating. They communicate a lot with the surgeons and perfusionists during the case as they manage the blood pressure, bypass, and restarting the heart after surgery. 

It was a very long day! Anna and I spent 6 hours in the OR, and we got there after the initial patient prep. We also left before they closed the chest, so it was closer to a 7-8 hour operation in total. 




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