ISM Final Speech

Hi, my name is Jason Duong and before we go any further with this presentation, I would
like to say a fun fact. Aneurysm is one of the easiest operations to do and has the fastest recovery
rate for a patient. The reason why I’m telling you this is because I started my mentorship out
with an Aneurysm issue with the patient.
So a little about me; I am from Clear Horizons Early College High School, with we get
our associates degree with our diploma when we graduate. My future job is to be a surgeon.
Although I don’t know which specialty to go into, I know that when the years progress, I will
find out where I want to go. As for my college, I just got accepted to UH, but since I can’t go
anywhere else besides Houston because of my parents, I decided to apply to any school that I
find interesting in Houston. So, I decided to apply to Rice, which is one of the hardest schools to
get into in Houston.
My mentor is Enrique Barrientos. He is a P.A. working at UTMB in the vascular
department. So on a daily bases, I would meet the patient, diagnose them, then take notes so that
I can imply them into my project, which is on the next slide.
My project is to create a simulated program on the protocols of surgery on the carotid
disease, which I’ll take about later on.
So why did I choose this project. I choose this specific project because I thought that this
would help medical students on deciding which doctor they want to be. With this program, I’m
able to do this.
So there are four steps to making this application: research, programming, trial testing,
and revising. The first step is researching. Researching is one of the hardest things I’ve done.
This is because all the notes I am using is doctors language, or more precise, medical
terminologies. I used UpToDate, so it was even harder to decode. But luckily, Enrique was able
to help me decode this on his free time. The second step was programming. I am not going to
talk much about this because I want to focus more on the medical side and not the programming
side. And before I talk about this, I would like to say thank you to Tarun for helping me with
most of the programming. So there are three things that I needed to know: print, function, if, elif,
else statement. Print is simple. Say you write a word on Word and you print it on a paper, that’s
the same as this. A function is created to carry out a specific task. If, elif, and else is the reason
how I was to create multiple routes. Without this, this product would be pointless. Next is trial
testing. I asked a bunch of friends to help me get some feedbacks on this application because I
wanted my application to be the best. The fourth and the most annoying step was revising. What
made this annoying was that I had to reread my code, which was around 220 lines in and make
some few adjustments. This step was easily annoying because of that.
And with that I was able to create my final product. The left is what it looks like after
completing the program while the right photo is how much coding it took to just provide one
simple information display.
 So now since we talked about how I made the application, I’m now going to talk about
what the topic is inside of the application. Like I said earlier in my slide, I was focusing on the
carotid disease. The carotid disease is plagues building up on the two main arteries to our neck.
This can cause strokes.
So there are two types of protocols to make in these types of situations. There is the
carotid endarterectomy. The carotid endarterectomy is when the patient has over 75% stenosis
and the surgeons make an incision to the neck so that they can clear the neck of plagues. Once
that was finished, they would then add a patch to maintain adequate blood flow. My mentor told
me this a lot of times. He used an example of a gardening hose. If you didn’t cover the hose, then
the water would just pour out, but if your were to cover the hose, then the water will shoot
because there is a small space where the water could come out from. This example applies to our
arteries as well. The second protocol is carotid artery stenting. If the plagues are too hard to
remove, then the surgeons would add a stent to add adequate blood flow.
So since there are two protocols to make for a carotid disease, how do you choose one
over the other? There are eight steps made by the American Heart Association to tell surgeons
when to use what process. These steps have a variety from age to stenosis.
And so now, with all this, I was able to create my application. So now, lets have a demo
play of it. Ill skim through some stuff so if you want the full experience, I can provide you with
the application. So in the beginning, the program will lead you to a beginners trial so that you
would get how the program works. Next is where it shows the patients progress notes, which is
what it sounds like, patients history of notes. As a disclaimer, this was all made up. The patient
does not actually exist. After finishing those notes, the program will lead you to choosing which
scan to use on our patient- ultrasound, MRI, or CT scan. Each path will lead to a different
ending, so be aware of which scan to use. For this demo, we will go with ultrasound, the correct
route. Using ultrasound is the best route because ultrasound doesn’t harm the patient with
radiation. Additionally, ultrasound picks up the patients velocity of the blood flow. MRI and CT
scan only detects and identifies the location or what’s within the organ. So with that, after
choosing that, we then go to the meat of the program: carotid endarterectomy or carotid artery
stenting? The answer to this one is carotid endarterectomy. To decipher this, look back at the
patient notes. The evidence is there. And with that, we have completed the game. Keep in mind
that this is the good route, meaning that this is the only good route and there are 7 more routes.
So now, I would like to thank Enrique Barrientos for being my mentor and for helping
me. You have always been more than a mentor. I have sometimes consider you to be a very good
teacher and friend. I would like to thank the evaluators for being here. I would like to thank Ms.
Kahlich, who taught me how to be professional in everything and for making this mentorship
possible. I would like to thank Tarun for helping me program. I would like to thank my parents
for being here and for helping me to strive the best of me. I would like to finally thank the trial
testers to help me making this amazing program. I have been told that I was the champion, but
the true was that we all are champions and if there is no more questions, I would like to conclude
this presentation. Thank you.