Week 10/ Wrapping Up

This week, I went and bought new tissue for testing, and have been preparing the samples for testing next week. The segments will be stitched with different types of sutures—Stratafix, v-loc, and ‘regular’ vicryl. The pressure will again be measured by the arterial line setup and hopefully I will be able to compare the results to see if the suture type affects burst pressure for these samples. I have also spent a lot of this week researching at home, not only reading up about compartment syndrome, but also continuing to analyze my tensile strength data. Compartment syndrome really illustrates how capillary perfusion will fall due to high pressures in an area and points out to the fact that it is unlikely that vessels reach these abnormally high pressures. Thus, for my project, instead of measuring when the fluid will begin to leak from the tissue segments, I will be focusing on whether the stitches hold at certain ‘normal’ pressures that may exist in real conditions, and not just under simulated experimental/lab conditions.

In addition to my SRP project, I spent the second half of my week visiting Cornell. I was lucky enough to dorm with one of my old friends, and even got to sit in on several courses. The campus was beautiful (but huge, walking anywhere took around 10-15 minutes) and I had a really great time.

Cornell's bell tower

I have not yet committed to a school, but nonetheless it was an amazing experience to travel to Ithaca for the first time!

Hope everyone had a similarly great week! I will be conducting the rest of my trials soon, and can’t wait to share my results with you all. I have also been working on my presentation, to share my project with the greater community, that will occur on May 7th at the . My classmates and I will be presenting our findings from the past few months—feel free to come and take a look! (More information here).

Until next time,

Vanessa