Doctor vs. Doctor

This week I had the coolest opportunity! Last fall two doctors from Emory/Grady came to Tech and gave a Clinician's Seminar. At lunch with them afterward, they invited us to come to their campus so we could get a feel for what they do and their perspective on research. Since my research is all about arthritis treatment, I think it's important to get the practical view of how my research could go into patients.

A grad student friend of mine and I ventured down to Grady/Emory in downtown on Tuesday to join these doctors for their version of a "lab meeting". The hoard of orthopedic residents, interns, and a few extra senior doctors crowded into a conference room to discuss "the literature" on thumb fractures. We in academia get so caught up talking about a specific protein or cellular pathway, whereas doctors nerd out about different ways and places to break bones. It's so similar but so different!

We sat along the wall and mostly listened to them discuss, in exorbitantly jargoned up terms, the details of how these breaks occur and how they're currently treated. The neat part was when they discussed the frequency of OA after a break, which is where I got to enter my 2 cents' in the conversation. It's such a good feeling when you're able to contribute something useful! We had some short discussions, and the meeting moved on, but I felt so good being able to hold real meaningful dialogue with this otherwise alien world. :-)

Fostering this collaboration between the Doctors (who work with people) and the Doctors (who work in the lab) will bridge the existing disconnect between the cool technology that we strive to publish (or perish)in journals that doctors don't read, and the treatments that doctors have come up with. Maybe I should call this enterprise Doctors-to-Doctors.