This week has been a cool-down from Research Showcase. Although I did not do much outside of campus, I did get work done for my portfolio. This included additional research assessments and an Original Work presentation to prepare. I will be presenting a 15 minute speech to my classmates about the work I have accomplished so far in the school year. This will be recorded and added to my digital portfolio. Although there are a lot of parallels in both my original works, I want to specify more about what I have been able to do alongside Dr. Zerr. I will be describing the segmentation process and how I created three-dimensional meshes of hip joints with a computed tomography scan.
Between my clinical rotations and mentor visits, I somehow find time to complete my class assignments. Thankfully, I decided to refrain from AP classes this year because I wanted to maximize my time with ISM. I have never been more thankful of myself since then. My GPA did take a dip this year, but I try not to worry about this. I do this by reassuring myself that the experiences I am getting with my mentor coupled with the opportunities I can pursue in research overshadows a minute drop in my rank and GPA. Research Showcase this year was a definitive success. Dr. Wells came and met my family, and some of my closest friends came to support. I employed the same design for my tri-fold display with two laptops that fold back into tablets. They displayed last year’s original work. This is because the original work was more about the segmentation process used to create three-dimensional models. I still wanted to showcase last year’s work, so I kept them on display. In addition, the research I compiled last year is directly related to the collaborative research project I am taking part in. Understanding femoroacetabular impingement is vital in order to conceptualize the work being done in our comparative study. Overall, the night at the Star went very well, and I am very thankful for everyone who came to support me.
I had a mentor visit scheduled the day after Research Showcase. I met with Dr. Joseph Zerr to segment more hips for the research project. Some of the computed tomography scans were not the best quality, so seven total hips were completed. Nonetheless, we apparently have enough hips for a strong sample size. I plan on involving myself more in the project by either segmenting additional hips or meeting with the medical students who will be surveying them. My ultimate goal is to be authored in this paper, while contributing a significant amount to the team. I met with Dr. Joseph Zerr this week, and we began the first steps in the collaborative research project. We met at the William P. Clement’s Jr. University Hospital. Dr. Zerr lead me to radiology, a dark room with large, adjustable computer desks with five monitors equipped at each workstation. He acquainted me with the advanced three-dimensional modelling software. The purpose of the visit was to segment a number of hips that have femoroacetabular impingement with computed tomography scans.. Three-dimensional models were exported and sent to Yonatan Chatzinoff.
The process itself draws many parallels with photoshop. A selection tool is used to remove the sacrum, the bilateral pubic crest, and additional artifact that diminishes the clarity of the computed tomography of the hip joint. The visit lasted nearly three hours, and I had a great time working on the hips alongside Dr. Zerr. In addition, I stayed in Dallas later that night for a journal club meeting with Dr. Lindsay Ramey, a nonoperative specialist, and Dr. Ed Mulligan, an orthopaedic surgeon. The discussion was about acute lateral patellar dislocation. We reviewed a few publications that addressed treatment and trends amongst sample sizes. My favorite article was a reference page that gave a comprehensive review of several operative treatments and anatomy of the knee. This week’s report will most likely showcase the most productivity I am capable of. This is because the report includes every following week until January 8th. A lot was accomplished in this time, and I am excited to see how everything will play out for the remainder of the year after Research Showcase. On January 3rd, I met with the research team behind the research project we are conducting. The team includes a Dr. Wells; a few engineers from both UTSW and UTD; a team or radiologists; and two medical students.
We discussed what each of us will be contributing to the paper. It is very clear that each person played a significant role in this project from the radiologists slicing hip CTs to three-dimensional models to medical students taking direct measurements to the engineers simulating joint mobility with a best-fit sphere from the three-dimensional models. I will be learning more about the slicing process with Dr. Jonathan Zerr, a radiologist from UT Southwestern. In addition, I began preparations for Research Showcase. I will be using the same design as last year. The build was interesting and unique, so it will be repeated with a few adjustments to ensure the integrity of the build. For example, we are using a stronger adhesive to merge a foam and cardboard together to reinforce the display board while keeping the blue board in front of everything. I am excited to keep working on this presentation and project. |
Shoaib FarooquiStudent currently enrolled in Liberty High School, studying orthopaedic medicine under the mentorship of Dr. Joel Wells. Archives
January 2018
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