• Question: Do you sometimes think your work is kinda gross?

    Asked by Ell to Alejandra, Ana, Daniel, Sophie, Todd, Zach on 8 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Ana Gallego

      Ana Gallego answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      It is not gross at all. At the beginning, I was shy about asking the amputees about how they lost their leg, or whether it hurts, or other personal questions. But I am not used to it and I feel very comfortable asking anything. I talk to them a lot about sweat and skin conditions such as rashes or blisters, but this is something that, to some degree, we all suffer in some measure throughout our lives, so we can all relate to it.
      At the end of the day, it is just parts of the body, legs, or arms, or whatever you work with and we celebrate that we are all alive and healthy.

    • Photo: Zach Welshman

      Zach Welshman answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      Yes, i don’t like the look of feet, but from an engineering perspective I find them fascinating. Also there are so many people that suffer from sore feet after a long day of walking or running or playing sport, so it’s an important area of research!

    • Photo: Alejandra Aranceta

      Alejandra Aranceta answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      It would depend on what you consider something to be gross, but in my personal opinion, I don’t think (ever) that my work is kinda gross, I think my work is kinda cool!

    • Photo: Todd Burton

      Todd Burton answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      I’ve had to do some rat dissections to isolate the kidney cells, luckily i’m not too squeamish.

    • Photo: Sophie Cox

      Sophie Cox answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      I totally thought some of the stuff we do in our labs was pretty gross to start off with but now I see past that. Sometimes we have to do gross things to achieve positive things. Like animal dissections, working with smelly bacteria, or looking at images of really complex/scary wounds but we do these things to try and make a difference to someone and that kinda makes you forget about it being gross.

    • Photo: Daniel Morse

      Daniel Morse answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      For some of my work, I have to obtain rat tails (for the collagen to use in my tissue models), so cutting the tails off is pretty gross..

      Working with smelly bacteria can be pretty gross too..but its all part of the job, and actually you get used to it really quickly! Sometimes its quite a pleasant smell now haha!

Comments