This week, we have made significant progress towards our final project. As I mentioned in the last post, we have a couple of side projects that we are working on, and those have been going well. We have officially wrapped up our capstone packages, so hopefully we will be able to see a couple of these projects come to life via senior capstone projects or maybe even a GMI project. Now we are mainly focusing on researching light spectrums for skin cancer diagnosis, outreach efforts for regular mammogram scans, and, of course, our automated pathology staining protocol. More updates on our main project coming next week!
On top of working on our actual projects, we are simultaneously still observing different departments for CITEC. Our first two weeks here were mainly focused on making observations and tons of needs finding, so we have a pretty good foundation of observations. However, we didn’t get the chance to be fully immersed in each department. So our plan for the next couple of weeks is to visit these departments at least one more time and really focus on gathering meaningful observations to bring back to CITEC.
This week, we gathered observations in the OR room. We were able to see 5 operations this past Tuesday, which was super interesting. I think a lot of us learn about these procedures or hear them referred to as standard procedure, but we never actually get to see them in action. While most of the surgeries were pretty standard in terms of the technology used, we observed one that incorporated a kind of GPS system unique to the patient. They essentially acquired a CT scan of the patient’s abdomen and set up a kind of antenna as the main reference point. During the surgery, the surgeon inserted a probe that appeared on the CT scan and essentially showed the surgeon where in the body he was. This allowed him to identify key landmarks and guide his anatomy knowledge so as to not prick an artery.
After taking a couple of imaging classes, it’s super cool to see how things I’ve learning in those classes can be combined with my other engineering classes and then somehow make their way into the OR rooms in such a meaningful way. This week definitely made me realize that I chose the perfect career!!!