Anatomy and Art

a blog by Sara Egner

My First Patient (reposted)

without comments

I recently found this, going through some old files.  I’d initially posted it here years ago and then pulled it down when I was having some disagreements with a teacher (no one mentioned here).  But it’s a nice little memory of my first time working with a patient.

Sometimes I still miss getting to work with people like this in my current career path.  I love what I do now, but there was something special about anaplastology that just isn’t like anything else I’ve ever done.  I was pretty good at it too.

Anyway, here’s an old and dear memory of it
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Well today has gone just fantastically.

Today I had my first delivery of a prosthesis to a patient.  And I couldn’t have asked for it to go any better.  We made it a little heavy on the red, at the patient’s request.  Red is the color that fades the fastest, and he didn’t want to come back in another year.  I was so nervous about overdoing it, but it came out fantastically.  He was so happy, and Dr. Reisberg even warned me about raising the bar too high on my first patient.

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It looked really good on him, and I’d show you a picture of that, but I didn’t ask his permission to show those photos online.  Anyway, he left with a smile on his face, and even as red as the ear was, it looked quite natural against his face.  The only tell was when you were looking at both ears and comparing.  And because we worked so much color into the instrinsic silicones, it will continue to look good for a long time.  I’m so excited.

We got to try something with the acrylic substructure too.  I was working with Camille Rea this time, and she tried something with the substructure that I think was just brilliant.  Rather than relying on a small lip to mechanically hold the acrylic inside the silicone, she drilled holes directly into it.  The way everything fit together, it was possible to do that, and I thought it was a great idea to provide extra mechanical retention.

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You can see here how the silicone wraps around the acrylic substructure, allowing access to the clips.  Those little holes are going to help prevent any possible separation of the materials as the prosthesis ages.

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I feel like we sent this man away with a really good prosthesis that’s going to last a long time.  I love that.  What a fabulous experience.

Written by Sara

April 13th, 2016 at 6:52 pm

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