Unfortunately, I didn't go in to the clinic much this week, because Dr. Weiland is out of town. Also, I missed my Thursday rotation because I am currently in Virginia visiting University of Virginia and William & Mary! I did go in to the clinic on Monday, and was able to see the progress of a few of Dr. Stein's patients.
However, because I did not go into clinic much this week, I had time to start working on my retrospective analysis of the wound care data. I began by typing 3 months worth of data from 10 patients into Excel. From the data, I found the length and width of the wound, and was therefore able to find the total area of the wound. Therefore, I can see the area from visit to visit over a span of 3 months. I initially wanted to find the percent closure of the wound area from week to week, but realized that this would not be possible because, since the wound clinic is out-patient, many of the patients do not come in every week. Instead, I will be able to find the percent closure between visits for every patient.
Although nothing very memorable happened this week, I obviously need to incorporate another gross picture, because at this point my blog just wouldn't be the same without one! This week's infection is called "necrotizing fasciitis." Like last week, I personally haven't seen this type of wound in the clinic because it is so severe. You may have heard of "flesh-eating bacteria" which gained prevalence in the news a couple of years ago, and that is exactly what necrotizing fasciitis is: a severe bacterial infection that actually kills the body's soft tissue. This is all thanks to a strain of bacteria called "group A Streptococcus." Although there are more types of bacteria that can cause necrotizing fasciitis, group A Streptococcus is the most common.
This picture isn't the greatest, but I can assure you I was being kind. If you're brave enough, you can do a Google image search of necrotizing fasciitis to see just how bad it can be.
Next week I'll be back in the clinic and will finish my analysis of the data! Until then!
Wow, I googled the pics and I mildly regret doing so! That's so exciting that you're visiting colleges! So as far as the retroactive research that you're doing, how long did that take in excel? Were you the one crunching all the numbers?
ReplyDeleteSounds like a cool week, both in and out of your internship! Do you think there will be a difference in change of area for different patients with similar treatment?
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