As I continue my journey to understanding pediatric neurology, there is one case I would like to highlight. This week, I met a 13 year old boy whose friends were joking around and pushed him down on the floor and stomped on him. This caused severe spinal injury and the boy was on mechanical ventilation for 2 months before he was able to start walking again and regained his sense of hearing.
I learned that there is so many factors that cannot be controlled when it comes to human health. Any amount of innovation could not have prevented what the poor boy went through. The other aspects affecting his health were things controlled by his school environment, social network, and individual actions. Though the situation was sad, the boy was recoverin very fast and already regained a lot of functionality. I was happy to see that he could still have a chance at some level of normalcy.
That being said, I recounted all the things I am grateful for including my wonderful friends in the GMI summer experience. This week ended off with a delicious potluck where I ate a lot of delicious food and bonded with the rest of the cohort. I look forward to treasuring these moments and will always remember to be grateful for the supportive environment at Rice University. I hope the boy makes a full recovery and I hope that as a biomedical innovator, I am able to help patients like him.
Signing off,
Aiman