BME Summer Immersion 2026

Name: Pooja Nair Clinical Mentor: Dr. Jason Spector Week 1 of clinical immersion began with shadowing several plastic and reconstructive surgeries. One case I want to highlight was a state‑of‑the‑art hand reconstruction. A malfunctioning chemotherapy port had caused localized necrosis, and surgical debridement left a significant soft‑tissue defect in the hand. To restore coverage, the team performed a reverse radial forearm flap, elevating and rotating the flap into the defect to re‑establish soft‑tissue integrity. 1,2 The donor site was then treated with DermiSphere™ (hDRT), a novel hydrogel‑based dermal regeneration template developed from technology discovered by Dr. Jason Spector. This innovative hydrogel–collagen matrix is designed to maintain an optimal wound‑bed environment and support regeneration following full‑thickness skin loss. 3 the area from where skin flap was harvested was providing an utterly innovative hydrogel, collagen-based dermal regeneration template that main...

The first week of Summer Immersion has been enriching. For reference, my project is with Dr. Gene Kim, and I will be shadowing Dr. Katerina Dodelzon on MWFs. I will organize this blog into two subsections, s hadowing  and research . Shadowing Throughout this experience, I want to focus on shadowing breast imaging (summer reserach) and cardiology (PhD research).  On Monday, I had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Dodelzon to get a general overview of breast mammography. She taught me that women may precede with normal and healthy lives if breast lesions are spotted early (with regular screenings). Additionally, she taught me how to read mammograms, and noted that dark regions represent fat, and bright regions represent fibroglandular tissue (milk ducts and lobules). She mentioned that there are 4 types of breast densities: fatty, scattered, heterogeneous, and extreme. Of those 4, mammography has a difficult time capturing heterogeneous and extreme breast densities. Given its di...

For this first week, I spent much of my time shadowing my clinical mentor and his team. My Immersion clinical mentor is Dr. Fahey, a surgeon in Endocrinology who specializes in minimally invasive surgeries. Dr. Fahey is also a collaborator of my PI, Prof. Shuibing Chen, so the project I will be working on involves both labs. Monday included orientation, meeting with my clinical mentor, and getting set-up in my PI’s lab, which is where I will be conducting research for my Immersion project. On Tuesday, I was able to see a surgery for the first time. Until then, I had only seen surgeries through media, so stepping into the operating room (OR) to see the patient under anesthesia and all of the surgical team working together seamlessly like a well-oiled machine was extremely fascinating and impressive. This first operation was a right hemithyroidectomy to remove a cancerous nodule, along with aspiration and pulsed field ablation of a few smaller nodules. The initial slew of medical termino...

I just finished the first week of the summer immersion program at Weill Cornell, where I've been shadowing Dr. Prince in the radiology department. As an MD-PhD, he works in research and patient care simultaneously, and it is striking how directly he's managed to connect the two. The problems he encounters with patients become research questions, and the tools his lab builds in response find their way back into his clinical practice.   Polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is a good example of how that plays out. Although Dr. Prince's  background is in whole-body MRI/radiology, his clinical work with PKD patients drew his attention to a significant problem with how kidney size is measured in these patients. For context, as PKD progresses, the kidneys steadily enlarge as cysts develop, so their total volume essentially reflects how far the disease has advanced. Then, the quick clinical shortcut is to approximate each kidney as an ellipsoid. This practice is fine fo...

Monday : 2026.06.01  It's official! With a badge and everything! I have joined Dr. Sandra Demaria's lab in the Department of Radiation Oncology as a summer immersion student. After being taken around a tour of the very well-organized lab and being given my own bench and desk (truly, a gift), I spent most of the rest of my day finishing the CITI and LMS trainings.  Tuesday : 2026.06.02 Today I attended our first weekly meeting. While mostly used to address any CWID issues this week, it was good to keep learning how to navigate the very big hospital. I was able to catch the end of the Demaria lab meeting, where Dr. Soler Agesta presented her data on the effect of mitochondrial DNA removal on interferon production post-irradiation of 3x8Gy. While I was able to understand the larger scientific conclusions of her work, I did a lot of note-taking. on terms and concepts I do not yet understand well so I can look them up later.  I was able to meet with Dr. Demaria today, as well....

     The start of immersion has been very exciting and nerve-racking. There were many logistics to figure out, as access to certain portions of HSS and WCM requirements had not yet been granted. Despite having to figure out security access, badge acquisition, and general hospital locale, the start of the week was very eventful. On Monday and Tuesday, I was able to shadow Dr. Gomoll in the clinic as he conducted patient consults and follow-ups. It was very cool to be able to see some of the products I read about in research articles being implemented in patients, especially hyaluronic acid injections, as well as osteochondral allografts from donor tissue to repair defective articular cartilage of the femoral condyles. It was interesting to see a clinician's point of view regarding this. It was especially interesting to probe Dr. Gomoll's brain on what doesn't work about viscosupplementation, the act of injecting lubricious material into the joint space in order to restore ...

I have the pleasure of working with Dr. Gauthier in Neurology this summer. The first thing I noticed this week was how the world of clinical research in a medical setting uses a completely different language than the world of academic scientific research. While this is perhaps quite an obvious observation, it was interesting to see how different lab meetings are here; in my Ithaca lab, we typically use MRIs that have already been collected, so talk of coordinating data collection and patient scanning was completely new to me. Beyond logistics discussions, through the lab meeting I also learned more about a specific MS lesion called a paramagnetic rim lesion as there were discussions to try to classify different lesions for a dataset the clinic has collected.  I also had the opportunity to sit in on a meeting in which all the different MS doctors at the clinic go over different cases they would like input on. All the cases were discussed with some imaging projected (T1, T2 FLAIR, QS...

This first week of immersion has focused on familiarizing myself with the hospital environment and gaining a better understanding of the clinical work my mentor, Dr. Kim, is involved in. The first half of the week was centered on observing electrophysiology procedures, including a case involving a patient with atrial fibrillation originating in the left atrium. During the procedure, the clinical team performed ablation around the pulmonary veins. The physician leading the case explained that abnormal electrical conduction or signaling near the pulmonary veins can disrupt normal cardiac rhythm and contribute to atrial fibrillation. I also learned that the source of circuit disruption can vary between patients, making patient-specific mapping an important part of treatment. This case used a Medtronic catheter system that was able to both map and ablate tissue, which I found especially interesting from a device and engineering perspective. I learned that some competing systems, such as Ab...

During my first week shadowing in the Department of Cardiology, I had the privilege of seeing various procedures starting Day 1! Before walking into the OR, I had a chance to sit in on a cardiac MRI reading where physicians discussed what to include in their "impressions" for the patient. The impression is a section of a patient's radiology report that summarizes the radiologist's most important findings: any abnormalities, potential diagnoses, and suggestions for additional tests/followups. Cardiac MRI is the current gold standard for evaluating both heart structure and function. One of the main advantages of cardiac MRI is its ability to provide detailed, reliable tissue characterization (such as scar tissue and inflammation).  After the reading session, I got a chance to watch an electrophysiology ablation procedure to treat atrial fibrillation. In the control room, I got to meet a few Medtronic representatives (who are experts with the Affera Mapping and Ablation ...

  This week was an introduction to immersion, and I spent time getting to know the hospital, familiarizing myself with the lab I will be working in, and beginning to shadow surgeries. I am working with Dr. Jason Spector, the chief of plastic surgery, this summer, and although only a week in I have already been exposed to a huge amount of new information and experiences. In the lab, Pooja (my co-mentee) and I were onboarded by Dr. Xue Dong, the lab’s main research associate. Dr. Dong introduced us to the lab’s novel biomimetic matrix platform for modeling breast cancer in vitro , which I found incredibly interesting, as my personal research project is focused on better characterizing breast cancer bone metastasis. My lab also uses the same primary human breast cancer organoids that the Spector lab is preparing to introduce to their system, so I spent some time getting information and protocols from my lab that I could share with Dr. Dong and her labmates. I was pleasantly surprise...

My first week of summer immersion has been both exciting and full of new experiences. Moving to New York City and getting settled has been a big transition, and I’ve been learning how to navigate a new environment both inside and outside of the hospital setting. This week, I’ve had the opportunity to begin familiarizing myself with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and the Hospital for Special Surgery, as well as the broader Weill Cornell Medicine community. While getting oriented, I’ve been using my time to complete required trainings, dive into background literature on rheumatic diseases, and begin thinking about potential directions for my research project. I’ve spent much of my time working in the Weill Cornell Medicine Library, which has been a great space to focus and learn more about the field of Rheumatology. I am especially looking forward to the coming weeks, when I will be able to gain clinical experience and begin my research in earnest. I also plan to use this opportunity ...

This week started off pretty slow since I didn’t meet with my clinician until Wednesday, but things picked up quick ly after that. One thing that has made a big difference is that Dr. Cheung sent an email out to the department about me shadowing, which has allowed me to move around and observe a variety of electrophysiology procedures rather than being limited to a single physician or case type. This has given me exposure to many different aspects of the field and has helped me gain a broader understanding of cardiac electrophysiology. In addition to clinical observations, I also met with one of the medical students working on my research project. During our meeting, we discussed some of the technical details and logistics of the project and worked through a few questions regarding the overall direction of the research. We are still in the early stages of planning, so there are additional details that need to be worked out, and we plan to continue those discussions next week. On Wednes...

This week marked the beginning of our immersion experience. So far, I have had the opportunity to start my research and to shadow my clinician, Dr. Hansen, at his clinic. These appointments were very interesting to observe largely due to the variety of patients that Dr. Hansen has, which include orthopedic oncology, metabolic bone diseases, and trauma cases.  On Tuesday, Dr. Hansen holds appointments with current patients which includes post-ops and follow-ups. I was particularly fascinated by the process of these appointments and Dr. Hansen's ability to quickly analyze the patient's situation. This Tuesday, there were a total of 35 patients including: post-ops for hip and knee replacements; pain follow-ups; osteonecrosis; hip, sacrum, and humerus fractures; osteoporosis treatment follow-ups; osteosarcoma and benign bone tumors; Paget's disease; and repeat stress fractures. Typically, the flow of seeing these patients included a quick review of their file and any scans foll...

This week was primarily focused on onboarding and getting established at both Weill Cornell Medicine and Hospital for Special Surgery. I completed a number of required trainings and worked through some logistical challenges related to obtaining badges, email access, and system permissions across both institutions. While there were a few delays, most issues have been resolved quickly thanks to the support of administrative staff. I had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Rodeo and the wonderful members of his laboratory and attend my first weekly lab meeting. It was exciting to learn about the diverse research projects underway and to gain a better understanding of the work I will be contributing to this summer. My project will focus on evaluating osteoarthritis progression in a murine model of non-invasive ACL rupture with delayed reconstruction. Using microCT imaging and Dragonfly software, I will assess changes in the meniscus over time and correlate those findings with histological ana...

Over the first week of immersion, I had the opportunity to observe a couple standard urologic operating room procedures, each offering a different perspective on diagnosis, imaging, and operative care. On June 1, I observed two standard operating room procedures. The first involved the treatment of four urinary bladder stones using a cystoscope inserted through the male urethra. The cystoscope was first equipped with a specialized head capable of generating a stream of water to break down the stones. After fragmentation, the water head was replaced with a suction tube to remove the stone fragments and excessive water from the water jet. The procedure was performed under direct real time visualization with a  standard 3x magnification camera integrated into the cystoscope. This procedure lasted 2-3 hours, with 2 and a half hours allocated to breaking down these stones using the water jet.  The second procedure involved a female patient undergoing blue-light cystoscopy to evalua...