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Welcome to my page! Thank you for taking the time to look at what I've been working on for the better part of a year now!
So who am I.....
well, I'm a current senior whose obsessed with the inner workings of the human body! Anatomy and physiology couldn't be more interesting to me so to channel that passion I volunteer at Spring Hill Community Ambulance Corps as an EMT!
Me and my friend Rebecca!
So how does this factor into my research project?
Project 1....
It all starts my sophomore year of high school, where I read up on the various applications of Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP)! PRP is a concentrate of platelet-rich proteins derived from centrifuged whole blood. This plasma is filled with healing proteins from the patient's own body which accelerate and strengthen the healing of all sorts of musculoskeletal injuries.
My path through the newly developed PRP field went like this:
Research of PRP following tooth extractions in the mandible
Applications of PRP on long bone injuries
Use of PRP to accelerate tendon and ligament tears
The specific application of PRP on Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) tears
But after months of working on PRP, I had to make an honest choice with myself...
In an attempt to keep my topic focused on PRP, I kept changing the type of application, hoping to find a researcher to talk to and expand my own project for school. But, PRP was much too new to the medical field, so research was still severely limited! Three times I had found potential mentors, but they all came to a dead-end much sooner than expected. Additionally, the added health dangers from the pandemic only worsened my chances of getting into a lab with a researcher. And so, I had to ultimately change my topic away from PRP, despite being so passionate about this interesting concept.
So where am I now?
Ouch!
Project 2....
After much thought and tribulation, Dr. Schuchman and I agreed working off my newly formed scope of knowledge would be the best course of action, that way I'd already have a foundation in place. From my last "focus" in the PRP realm, I had developed a strong understanding of the ACL and the general anatomy of the human body, so we chose to build off of this and create a data analysis of injury rates! And what better place to look for known injury reports than the National Football League (NFL), where the most common injuries revolve around the legs, specifically the knee.
But why do we care?
By assessing the injury rates of NFL players in correspondence to their position played, more typical injuries for types of players can be anticipated. The majority of these documents injuries cause irreversible damage on the athletes playing, sometimes permanently worsening their mobility and strength limits. By knowing the most common injuries for certain skilled players, new, focused, research can be done to discover more efficient methods of healing to get these hurt players back up on their feet again!
Here's a copy of my spreadsheet I'm using for data collection!
From here, I'm condensing the types of injuries per week to calculate the percentage. Then I'll compare these percentages to the following weeks. To link it back to types of players, I'll create new percentages and calculate them out of total injuries per position.
So what's next for me?
As for my future plans, I am going to SUNY Buffalo in the fall to pursue a major in Biochemistry and a minor in Society, Medicine, and Health on a pre-med track. Following my undergraduate years, I plan on attending medical school to pursue my dreams of becoming an OBGYN, emergency medicine physician, or trauma surgeon (I still haven't decided which I like better). While in college, however, I want to try pursuing some research regarding PRP, as I find myself still fascinated by all the healing properties and applications researchers are finding!
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