This week on Inland Journal:
Lung cancer is a difficult disease to catch early. The symptoms aren’t obvious and the early screening options aren’t very advanced. But a new robotic procedure is helping doctors find lung cancers earlier. We talk with Spokane cardiothoracic surgeon Alexi Matousek and medical student Christian Held. They’re working together to promote this robotic option and encourage people add lung cancer to their cancer screening.
"The big improvement with the ION robot is that it's able to take the CT scan of the patient's lungs and then completely map it out in three-dimensional space. It's kind of like Google Maps...You have the video camera that shows where the bronchoscope is and then kind of a Google Maps street view of a line going through a simulated mapped out lung and then really shows you the best way to get in there."
Then we go from medical images to photographic images. National Geographic came to Spokane this summer and sponsored a one-week camp to teach students about photography. We’ll talk with photographer/instructor Kiliii Yuyan and Gonzaga student Meredith Lewandowski about finding good photo options and developing that talent.
"We're doing storytelling. But it's also really a coming of age. It's an opportunity for all the students who are involved to do journaling, to really create a safe space for them to share with each other, to be vulnerable, and to think about things that they haven't thought about before, because the storytelling is in their own community."