stoke+lab+description

In this virtual experience students are radiologists in a special clinic located in the //SEPA/NCRR// //Virtual Research & Medical Center //. After familiarizing themselves with the clinic, students receive an urgent message that a patient, who may be the victim of a stroke, awaits diagnosis in the trauma room. The student consults the patient’s history and checks to see if he has any of the risk factors for stroke. A decision then has to be made about what diagnostic procedures are required. In this case, the proper choice is a CT scan. The student takes the patient into the CT Room and performs the scan.  The results of the CT scan justify a further diagnostic procedure – a CT angiogram. (Pictures on the next page show the CT angiogram machine and procedure.) The results of the CT angiogram indicate that the patient has an aneurysm. The student then performs an embolization (in this case, a “coiling” procedure) on the patient – sending a thin wire all the way up from the femoral artery in his leg to the spot of the aneurysm in his brain. The CT angiogram machine is used to track the progress of the wire through the various arteries. When the wire reaches the aneurysm, the student feeds the wire into the aneurysm, filling up the balloon in the artery wall, expelling the blood and <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">solving the medical problem. <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif""> <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">Stroke was chosen for this lab for a number of reasons. First, radiology is an increasingly important <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">specialization and many people know relatively little about it. It is a very interesting field and has <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">the potential of attracting quality students to the medical profession who might otherwise have <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">thought that they had no interest medical school. It was also chosen because stroke is a serious <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">health problem in this country and one where rapid detection is vital. Brain damage occurs very <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">quickly and the sooner the patient receives proper medical care, the more likely that permanent <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">damage can be reduced or averted. Thus, even for those students who never consider a career in the <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">medical field, this becomes a valuable lesson which could one day help save a person’s life. <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">This lab also has the potential to reach an important audience beyond that of K-12 classrooms. The <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">radiologist who served as our consultant on this lab, Dr. Ageet Gordhan, volunteered his time <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">because he wants to make this available to his patients who are going through procedures similar to <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">the coiling procedure featured in this lab. This can play an important role in helping patients and <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">their families and friends better prepare for these procedures, make better choices about their own <span style="font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">medical health, and reduce stress in the process.