Week 4

 This week was an exciting week in immersion. 


I focused on the clinic with Dr. Altorki, Dr. Port, and Dr. Villena and research. Although I also saw Dr. Port and Dr. Altorki in OR as well.


Research: 

After cleaning the data, I reclustered the data into different UMAPs. My next goal has been to define what subtype of NK cells are in each cluster. NK cells have to main types: NK1 and NK2. NK1 and NK2 are primarily defined by how much CD56 expression there is. However, there is not much published information on NK subpopulations beyond categorizing CD56 vs CD16 expression. Unfortunately, the CD56 gene expression does not have great presentation in single cell RNASeq. Because of this, I started looking at other genes in each cluster to better understand the state of NK cells in each cluster. I tried different methods to get genes that were highly present among the clusters. This was very interesting. Slowly, I am able to decipher which are NK1 vs NK2 cells and even memory NK cells.


In shadowing:


Once again, being in the clinic and OR was extremely interesting for me. This week was the first time I was able to see a the full cycle of a patient. I had seen him in surgery, and post surgery in the ICU. He always has a positive mood in the ICU, even when he was in discomfort. This week I saw him in the post-op follow-up. Once again, he was in a positive mood. He ended up sending a gift to the nurses at 4 central (where he stayed). He has been the first patient to thank him. The nurses are constantly talking about how doctors treat them (both good and bad). It's always a reminder to see how putting the extra effort in being kind makes a big difference for someone because you never know how others are treating them. 

There were several new patients as well. It's always interesting to see how the doctors interact with the new patients and comfort all of their concerns. Even though the doctors are very busy, the will make sure the patient has no concerns. Some patients cry because they feel overwhelmed by having yet another operation, or dealing with something that has come up out of the blue. The doctors comfort them and ensure them the procedure is needed but low risk. 

In the OR I saw a robotic case of removing a mediastinal mass on the left side. It was extreme exciting to see. Because of the location you could see the heart beating and the arteries. This surgery was done in collaboration with General Surgery, which was also interesting. 





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