Day 9 Fieldwork 2026

We had another great opportunity to shadow surgeries today at Shashkin’s inpatient clinic. Sameer and Jude were able to see an ablation surgery and Ada and Anya were able to see a Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery. The DBS surgery is less common and longer than the ablation surgery, so we were really excited to get to see one first-hand! In a DBS surgery, both hemispheres of the brain are operated on and a controllable electrode is implanted into both hemispheres. This gives patients (post-surgery) and doctors the ability to lower or raise frequency and intensity of the electrical signals depending on how the patient is feeling and if their tremors have improved or not.

Sameer and Jude went first, so they were able to meet up with Priya and Andrew at AlmaU to continue working on independent and team tasks. Ada and Anya were returned from their surgery in time for a late lunch and a couple of hours of work before heading back to the hostel post-dinner at AlmaU. When it comes to the surgeries we watched, it was extremely interesting, once again, to see how immediate the tremors subside upon placement of the electrode into the brain. On the left, Dr. Zhanybek is seen re-evaluating the patient after the insertion of the electrode. The relief patients seemed to feel really highlighted the importance of the ablation and DBS surgeries.