This is one of the local anesthetics Dr. Dimowo uses often for trigger point injections and other procedures. Trigger point injections target specific areas of taut muscle knots which cause patients pain. Lidocaine relaxes the muscles and releases the knots 

This is an x-ray of the lumbar vertebrae. I observed Dr. Dimowo as he performed an epidural injection.

It's supposed to look something like this ⇡⇡⇡

I was able to observe Dr. Dimowo  deliver facet (joint) injections as well. which looks like:  

Blog #24|: Exit Interview Questions

1.   What is your essential question?  What is the best answer to your question and why?

My essential question is how can an anesthesiologist best treat chronic pain? My best answer is referring patients to physical therapy. Although this isn’t a direct treatment from an anesthesiologist, it is a part of the anesthesiologists’ treatment plan.

2.   What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

After shadowing my mentor and seeing how he deals with patients who come in with various conditions whether it be arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic back pain, etc. I concluded that although medication and minor invasive procedures are effective in treating and reducing patient pain, physical therapy yields the most benefit for the patients’ health long-term.

3.   What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

The biggest problem I faced was finding mentorship. I knew that mentorship would be the most important factor in helping me answer my essential question so it was imperative that I find it. I overcame the challenge of not having mentorship by searching fervently and diligently for one. I ended up changing my essential question a bit to help me find a suitable mentor that could help me answer it.

4.   What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

My mentor Dr. John Dimowo and an article called Physical Therapy for Chronic Pain by spine universe. My mentor really took me under his wing and told/showed me everything I needed to know in order to help me answer my essential question. For example, he taught me about different medications that he prescribed to patients and even showed me how he performed certain procedures in order to treat their pain. One time he was telling me about a common local anesthetic called lidocaine, it’s other name is xylocaine (pronounced like zy-loh-cane), which happens to sound very similar to my name and so he remembers my name because of that. The article “Physical Therapy for Chronic Pain” helped my with my  best answer because it taught me all of the common physical therapy treatments patients may go through to treat their pain. For example, it told me about massage therapy, electrotherapy, etc.

5. What is your product and why?

My product is a character building trait that I have picked up through this whole experience which is improving in patient care. What I mean by this is, through volunteering in the ER at San Dimas community hospital and being mentored by Dr. Dimowo I have learned what it means to serve patients. Serving patients goes beyond providing them healthcare. It means being genuinely compassionate and concerned for their well being. For example, any doctor can check up on a patient for their health conditions and prescribe treatment, but it takes an excellent doctor to check up on everything about the patient including how they are doing besides their health condition. I learned this from Dr. Dimowo. I noticed that whenever he has a patient that he sees frequently, he will ask them how their family is doing or how their job is or what they’ve been up to. He really follows up with them on not only their condition, but on the patients themselves.

Blog # 23|: 2014 Interview

         Who did you interview and what house are they in?

      Bradley Schott: West House

2.  What ideas do you have for your senior project and why?

I’m not really sure. I was thinking about doing computer science or something in that field. I’m not really sure. Still exploring different options.

3.  What do you plan to do for your summer 10 hour mentorship experience?

Well my dad is a construction worker so I might work with him or with one of his friends. Or with my mom. She’s an IT at Cal Poly. So I might work with her or her boss. She’s a software engineer.

4.  What do you hope to see or expect to see in watching the 2013 2-hour presentations?

Looking for ideas for myself that I can do. Other than that I don’t know. Curious to see what other people are doing. Looking for peoples’ effort.

5.  What questions do you have that I can answer about senior year or senior project (or what additional information did you tell them about senior year or senior project)?

So basically it’s a 2hour presentation right? How is the time divided?

Basic format of a presentation although you can customize it, it really just depends on how much time you want to spend on each;

·      Intro| foundation (introducing EQ & explaining it)

·      Answer 1 | Activity 1

·      Answer 2 | Activity 2

·      Answer 3 | Activity 3

·      Conclusion | talk about important sources

Minimum speaking time in order to pass the presentation is thirty minutes. But this should cover content only. So this would be information in your answers. The rest of the time you can divide and figure out on your own.

Do you think people make a bigger deal than it really is? Because from what I hear, people are always saying that it’s really hard and stressful.

For most people it is stressful. Only because there’s a lot of other things going on in senior year as well, such as i-search, experimentation and investigation project, 3 column and a whole bunch of other things BUT all of the other things are supposed to help you with your final 2 hour presentation. So although it may seem stressful and a lot of work, make sure to take advantage of everything because it will ultimately help you in many ways with your senior project. For example, the 3 column will help you with your exit interview. I-search can potentially help you in the organization of your presentation, and there is also mentorship, which will obviously help you a great deal in answering your essential question.

For the most part I think the hype is just out there to intimidate you. Anyone can look at senior project and think it’s scary because of all the work that is put into it. There are assignments due weekly.  But once you’re actually going through everything and working on it you’ll see that it’s all worth it in the end. 

Blog #22|: Final 3 Column Chart

Final 3 Column

Blog #21|: Independent Component 2

LITERAL

(a)  I, Zhailah Graza, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.

(b) San Dimas Community Hospital

(c) Mentorship Log  

(d) I continued mentorship with Dr. Dimowo. I shadowed and observed him at work and asked him questions.     

INTERPRETIVE 

I continued mentorship with Dr. Dimowo for my independent component so that I could learn more about what he does and also to help me answer my essential question. I was able to observe him while he consulted and treated patients and I learned a lot from him. He shared his expertise with me, sat down with me and answered any questions that I had. I was able to take a lot of notes.  He also talked to me about my senior project and gave me tips on how I could make it better. Also, he offered to review my I-Search paper and give me feedback. He lent me documents to help me potentially understand how he is able to help patients. 

APPLIED

My independent component helped me answer my essential question because through observing and questioning Dr. Dimowo I learned different ways that Anesthesiologists treat chronic back pain. Upon my observation I learned from Dr. Dimowo that prescribing medications, performing surgical procedures and physical therapy are the best ways an Anesthesiologist can treat chronic (back) pain. There would be patients coming in with complaints of back pain and I was able to observe Dr. Dimowo treating his patients with the use of trigger point anesthetics and other small anesthetic procedures for pain management. He told me about different pain medications that he prescribes his patients and he also told me about the importance of physical therapy in treating a patient's chronic pain condition. During my extra hours of mentorship I also helped with some office work, such as filing patient information and organizing them by alphabetical order.

Blog 19|: Senior Project and ESLRs

The four ESLRs are:

• Effective Learner 
• Effective Communicator
• Effective User of Technology 
• Effective I-Poly Citizen 

1. What ESLR have you excelled in most in your senior project?
Effective Learner


2.  Please explain why you think you have excelled in this ESLR.
Research and interviews have helped me a lot in senior project

3.  Provide evidence from your senior project to support your claim (evidence is a photo of something you are doing, photo of something you made, etc).

I don't really have a picture of me doing something BUT I can provide a picture of a book that has helped me a lot with my project. It provided with a lot of helpful and useful information.