Week 3

 Matalin Pirtz

Dr. Lora Ellenson, MSKCC

6/24/22


Three weeks in, and I am finally getting settled in to NYC and my clinical experience. After reading a lot about gynecologic pathology, I am getting more comfortable identifying lesions and different pathologies when I attend meetings such as sign-out and conference. I am really enjoying all of the things I am learning here!

On Monday, I had the opportunity to shadow Dr. Kyi in Medical Oncology at MSK. Dr. Kyi had a busy day in the clinic, and I was very lucky to be able to see a few patients with her. I sat in with a consultation with a patient who was experiencing a reoccurrence after being part of a chemotherapy clinical trial. A big part of Dr. Kyi's practice is facilitating patient involvement in clinical trials at MSK, so I'm sure she has a lot of experience with these unfortunate reoccurrences. While this was difficult to hear, the patient was still being very positive and Dr. Kyi was amazing at keeping her optimistic. 

Unfortunately, while I was scheduled to shadow radiation oncology on Tuesday this week, I was unable to go, as the doctor I was meant to shadow ended up being away on vacation. So, instead I sat in on sign-out with pathology. Again, it is so interesting to see the different ways in which different malignancies in the female reproductive tract present on a cellular level.

Wednesday, I met with Dr. Amir Momeni-Boroujeni to discuss the research portion of immersion. As he is a molecular pathologist, we will be working with him alongside Dr. Ellenson on research. During this meeting, we discussed the research project more in-depth. It looks like I will have an amazing opportunity to expand both my computational and histological skills working on this project. Dr. Momeni-Boroujeni also mentioned the opportunity for this project to turn into a paper or an abstract for a pathology conference.

The rest of the week was quite uneventful. I worked on a lot of reading for the project and tutorials for the tools that may be needed. Also, as always I was sitting in on sign-outs and attended the treatment planning conference for gynecologic pathology. I look forward to learning more each and every week!

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