Hey followers!

The first few days of my senior research project have been really interesting. My advisor has rented a laparoscopic simulator and the tools to work in it. The simulator is basically a box with a camera on the inside that feeds video to a monitor that is built into the lid. There are seven holes on the front and sides of the box that the user pushes the shafts of the tools through. By watching the screen, the user is able to see the material that he or she is working on. In addition, my advisor has received an assortment of sutures, some barbed and some smooth. There are dozens of small white boxes, each of which contains sutures of a specific width, length, needle, and texture.

On Tuesday, we met with a representative from Ethicon, a section of Johnson & Johnson that specializes in biomedical devices, and she showed us the types of sutures that the company is working on. She also showed us a device with a plastic handle, a trigger, and a long metal rod with what looked like an open beak at the end. She placed a sheet of plastic in the “mouth” and pulled the trigger. The mouth snapped shut, clamping the sheet in place, and the device made a whirring sound for a few seconds. When the mouth opened again, there was an incision in the plastic, with tiny staples lined around the cut. The representative said these are the kinds of devices that Ethicon makes every year. The kind of work that Ethicon is doing is just what I want to do after college, so it’s a great opportunity to get to work with some of their products.