Sabina Strautnieks Hawken Project 2023

With tomorrow being the last day of my project, I feel I have grown from beginning to end. First, I have developed a better sense of the world of sports medicine from the perspective of a doctor. I have always been used to being a patient with the many injuries I have suffered from sports, but now it is the opposite. This exposure is a good start to the long road I am about to go down to becoming a doctor. Another way I feel I have grown is through my personality. I mentioned in an earlier blog that this experience is out of my comfort zone, but in a good way. I am interacting with patients and learning about them, as well as other doctors, which requires good social skills. When I am in unfamiliar spaces, I tend to be on the quieter side. While I am a shadow listening to the conversations between Dr. Schroeder and her patients much of the time, other times I need to be extroverted and friendly. To put it another way, I have been able to grow from more introverted to more extroverted a...

  One of the coolest things about being a part of this project is meeting all of the different patients. With their consent, I get to listen in on the conversations Dr. Schroeder, Melissa, and the occasional resident have with the patients. Dr. Schroeder sees around 20-23 patients a day, which is a lot. However, a lot of these people are really lovely, so I have enjoyed chatting with them. Patients will ask me what high school I go to, where I am going to college, and will then connect those answers to their own lives. I have learned that a lot of people either have direct connections to Hawken like their kids going/went there or friends. Many also have connections with Boston and BU and it is always fun to hear their stories. With that, I get to make connections with complete strangers, which is really cool. It is also sweet when the older patients come in and want to chat and socialize with the doctors. The connections Dr. Schroeder has with her patients is nice to see and also b...

This project has allowed me to realize a lot about myself and who I am as a person. I remember for the first couple of days at UH, I was really quiet and more introverted. However, now that I somewhat understand the flow of the clinical days, I have been able to open up a little more and not be so quiet. I listen and engage in really funny stories with Dr. Schroeder and Melissa, interact at times with the patients, and meet the other fellows, residents, and doctors that are around, through whom I've learned some pretty cool things. In fact today I heard stories from an orthopedic surgeon of some crazy surgeries he has done in the OR that are both cool and scary.        I don't think there is anything I would do differently other than just starting the process earlier. I really appreciate Dr. Schroeder taking me and allowing me to observe her, but I definitely felt like I reached out to her a little later in the timeline. With that, my advice for next year's Hawk...

My project is still going really well! I am getting into a groove of what happens on a daily basis while also learning to expect the unexpected. I say that because there is a lot of things that can happen like falling behind on patients, patient behavior, or no-shows. Through this, I am experiencing the difficulty of scheduling. I am also shadowing Dr. Schroeder at a time when another doctor is out on paternity leave, so many of his patients are being seen by her, adding to the craziness of the schedule. Many of these patients are struggling with arthritis, so I like to think that I am getting pretty good at knowing when someone has it from what they tell Dr. Schroeder and their x-rays. Unfortunately, I can't provide any pictures, but many of the x-rays with arthritis show the narrowing of the joint space between bones, leading to inflammation. I have learned that there isn't much you can do to treat it, and many patients are in physical therapy and receive the steroid, viscosu...

 As I mentioned in my second blog post, one thing I am really learning how to do is ultrasound scanning. I have been able to watch a lot of ultrasound injections, which are steroid injections guided by the ultrasound probe and images. Dr. Schroeder also does joint aspiration, which is when she drains fluid from the knee or other joints. These procedures are done to help alleviate pain from patients who mainly suffer from arthritis. First she injects numbing medicine and then switches to a mix of the steroid and more numbing. I have been able to learn how to scan different joints, the easiest being the knee.  Above is the ultrasound machine. It is really cool to see a different view of the joint, although it takes a lot of practice to understand what you are looking at. That is one of the things Dr. Schroeder has been teaching me. The picture on the machine is of my own knee, and you can see the femur, meniscus, and tibia with my MCL on the top. It took me a while to understand...

     With the beginning of my project underway, I am already learning a lot. I have been with Dr. Schroeder, a resident, Dr. Ella D'Amico, and Dr. Schroeder's athletic trainer Melissa. On my first day, I was pretty nervous, but I quickly got over it because of how nice everyone was. My initial expectations were not anything ambitious, and were that I will literally be her shadow, which is pretty accurate. What I did not expect were the amount of the procedures she does, and what they entail. I get to see as many as I can with patient consent. I think the procedures have surprised me the most, as well as the wide range of patients Dr. Schroeder sees from teenagers to older people, but mainly the latter. Another part of their job that surprised me is the amount of paperwork and files they need to keep and do. Before and after every patient requires extensive paperwork detailing the injury, patient, care, etc.       My typical procedure this week involves...