Week Four
Hello everyone!
This week was incredibly exciting since I finally got to talk with Dr. Maurer. Our conversation went extremely well and was surprisingly informal. We talked about how his volumetric index, the Myocardial Contraction Fraction, could be used as a reliable predictor of cardiac transthyretin amyloidosis. He and several other cardiologists developed it over a decade ago; however, they haven't established a numerical quantity with MCF yet that can accurately predict which patients have the deadly disease. He wanted Dr. Steidley and me to use data that Pfizer will give us in the near future to determine an average MCF value for afflicted patients. I'm continually humbled by this rare opportunity that I have been given to work with esteemed cardiologists and one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies all in an effort to improve someone's quality of life. I feel that the highlight of our conversation was that Dr. Maurer would want us to present our findings later this year and afterwards Dr. Steidley told me he was looking for the next major cardiology conference to present our work! For now it seems that could actually happen, and I want to make that happen. The eagerness that I have to use the data that Pfizer will give us is killing me! At the end of our conversation, Dr. Maurer wanted us to send him our abstract proposal so that he could give that to a statistician he's working with.
All of that happened this Monday. I've revised the abstract proposal throughout the week, getting most of it done that day (I was on a roll and didn't want to stop). Yesterday, Dr. Steidley looked at our proposal, revised it to make it more scientific (because despite all my efforts I'm still a high school student), and sent it in to Dr. Maurer. Compared to previous weeks, I only focused on just one thing- my project. I felt like I made huge progress this week and that by the end of the project I'll have done something truly great. Next week Dr. Steidley and I are off for spring break, so I won't have anything to post. I'll be back in two weeks and hopefully Pfizer will give us that data we need to make our analysis. I've spent four weeks on this project so far and I can honestly say that I am enjoying my time at the Mayo Clinic. I've learned so much about the medical world, ideal doctor-patient interactions, and revolutionary biomedical technology that will be present within the upcoming years. I'm glad that I have this opportunity and I hope that I will continue to make a significant contribution to my project.
Great Work Julius! You've always been pretty good at keeping your head about you. Being surrounded by an awesome group of people often must be really inspiring. I've always loved the idea of being surrounded by people smarter than me cause then I can comfortably resign to their better judgment. One thing I've noticed a little bit myself is that very smart or esteemed people end up being really cool and casual about it, and it's awesome for students who want to learn from them. Of course that is not always true, and these people certainly deserve respect and professionalism, but it's cool to see other sides of people, and motivates me a little bit to be like that if ever I were in their place down the road.
ReplyDeleteTalking to Dr. Maurer was definitely surreal. He was very down-to-earth and he even allowed me to call him by his first name! Its cool that you mention that since I feel that when one obtains such a prestigious level in his or her profession, then that person can afford to be more lax if not more courteous as that person doesn't have to go out of his or her way to prove himself or herself. Regardless, Ali I completely understand your sentiment.
DeleteThat's amazing Julius! It's one thing to hear about professionals in a field and read their work, but it's completely different to get to speak to them in real life. I'm glad your talk went well, and I hope you'll continue to have great experiences. Make sure to keep us updated on how your paper and project is going and all once you've gotten data from Pfizer and you've started really formulating everything. You're definitely on the path to something great!
ReplyDeleteThanks Aarthi! I definitely will! :)
DeleteHello Julius,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great thing to be accomplishing so much! Can you give us more specifics about the nature of the work that you completed on your project? It's an fantastic opportunity to be able to present at a conference, what are you hoping to have finished for that?
Hello Ms. Cooney! I haven't been able to do much without the data that we are waiting from Pfizer, if our proposal has been successful. So far I've just calculating the MCF from a few patients in the Mayo Clinic. If we're lucky, we hope to present evidence where MCF is superior to Ejection Fraction (EF) in predicting who will survive this disease. We want to find a specific value for which patients will have the disease or not.
DeleteHope you enjoyed your spring break! Can you tell me more about the data that you're getting from Pfizer? Is it just MCF values or are there other components?
ReplyDeleteHey Julie! The data that we hope to receive from Pfizer will contain a lot about a particular patient's cardiologic information such as stroke volume, mitral valve pressure, cardiac output, heart rate, interventricular septal thickness, posterior wall thickness, left ventricular end-diastole dimension, among other things. There are many other components to it and its just a manipulation of those components to find the MCF.
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