First Day!

02/12/16

Hi everyone and welcome to my second blog post!

This week I didn’t get to spend too much time on-site at Mayo since my first official day was today, Friday. I focused some of my time this week on independent research. I attempted to decode several images Dr. Panda, my co-mentor, had sent to me prior to the start of my project to help with my proposal. I wasn’t able to decipher much at first, but now looking at it again after I went over the basics of a MRI machine today, it makes a bit more sense.

On my first day, Dr. Panda introduced me to many doctors including my other co-mentor Dr Silva. I toured the Radiology department in the Mayo Clinic Phoenix location and learned that they have seven MRI’s up and running almost all the time. We spent most of the time discussing how I would carry out my project and what they could do to assist. Most patients getting a MRI are either getting cranial scans or spinal scans but the patient scans that I will be looking at will be from the prostate and possibly the liver or pancreas. Dr. Panda and Dr. Silva explained to me that a MRI scan is composed of many series and a series is a picture that gives a different bit of information about what is being scanned. Each series comprises of different sharpness, resolution, etc. that tells us something new. Sometimes when people aren’t able to sit through a full MRI scan, doctors are left with only a few series or pictures and not the complete scan. Some series give more valuable information necessary for a diagnosis than others and with the help of Dr. Panda and Dr. Silva, I will be using a trial of prostate scans to determine which series are most important.

After deciding that using prostate scans will be most effective for the research project, Dr. Panda and I went to the Scottsdale campus of Mayo Clinic where I sat in on a meeting. I met with other doctors such as Dr. Min and Dr. James, both of whom I will be interacting with more later in my project. In the meeting they discussed, how to utilize the MRI machines so that there an optimal number of exams performed per hour. After the meeting, Dr. Panda and I returned to the Phoenix campus and finalized our schedule. Due to his and Dr. Silva’s unpredictable hours, the times when I will go in and shadow will be determined on a weekly basis. From my experiences today, I am looking forward to going in sometimes next week to meet with the rest of the team who I will be working with and to finally get started on collecting data for my project!