Carolyn: Lab work and more dessert!

During my second week, I made progress in the lab as my clinician was traveling. I started to perfect my RNAseq techniques. Although I have several different protocols to use for reference, I am still working to ensure that the RNA I extract is of high quality. This remains a work in progress!
I was able to attend several interesting meetings this week. At the Hospital for Special Surgery this morning, a physician from California gave a talk regarding a non-profit organization he runs, Global Spine Outreach. This organization travels to underprivileged areas and helps to provide expert spine surgeries to pediatric patients suffering from severe scoliosis. The images he showed were incredibly moving, as it is clear that these patients have almost no hope of normal life with their current standard of care. This surgeon makes a huge impact and changes their lives for the better. Additionally, he provides some instruction to the practicing physicians living in these areas, encouraging better care even while he is not physically in those countries. These social impacts of medicine remind me why I pursued this type of career and will hopefully continue to inspire me to work to improve treatments both at home and abroad. I thought this particular talk was especially effective because the surgeon provided general instructions on how to start a successful effort like his non-profit organization, therefore allowing the model to continue to be effective in more locations as well as more fields of medicine.
Additional efforts to study patient care and identify necessary areas of improvement are being made here in NYC at HSS. I attended a rheumatology talk concerning patient disparity groups. This is a new side of the medical field we do not often consider as engineers and scientists. Statistically, certain groups in our society will perform better or worse after arthroplasty procedures, and may even have varying levels of access to care. This field typically attempts to determine whether certain ethnic groups are being under-served, or if there are other disparity groups in our population that receive lower quality healthcare. It was depressing to hear that this field has data suggesting that women both do not improve as much after arthroplasty procedures and tend to undergo surgery at later disease states. However, it was great to hear that the ethnic groups included in this study did not have significant differences.
Outside of the hospital, I continued to enjoy the perks of living in New York. I saw my second Broadway show – The Phantom of the Opera! The music in this show has always been a favorite of mine – I have played it both on piano and flute. Hearing the music live was an incredible experience I will not forget anytime soon. I was also able to attend the Pride Parade on Sunday and see all the incredible groups there to support the LGBTQ community – I even saw a group from NYP!


Another highlight of my week was celebrating my roommate Regan’s birthday! We found a great taco place to go to for dinner, as tacos are her favorite meal. Although we were hoping to get on the rooftop at this bar, we ended up going to a rooftop bar not too far away and enjoyed seeing the city at night with some interesting drinks. We ended the night with a great cake, which we are continuing to enjoy each night.  



Last weekend, some friends and I traveled to the Brooklyn Smorgasburg food festival. We enjoyed our time there so much that I plan to go back this coming weekend when my boyfriend is visiting. 

In addition to the great food at Smorgasburg, I had some amazing pasta and frozen rosé (frosé) at Bar Primi. We waited almost two hours, but it was worth it! 


My top dessert choices for this week include the ice cream and churro cone from Chikalicious  (below) and a chocolate mousse cake with passion fruit filling form Maison Kaiser. I am looking forward to continuing my quest for more dessert this weekend!




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