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@dresmerelda

ID/Micro Academic Doctor & Smiley-faced lover of purple

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Can you name an important historical infection-connection for cows and India! I’m thinking of a specific disease... 🤔 • 🤭 • 🤔 • Smallpox! 💉 • The first vaccine created was by Edward Jenner in the late 1700s. He used cowpox from Blossom the cow, 🐮 via a milkmaid called Sarah, to make a vaccine against smallpox. Smallpox is a nasty virus with a 30% death rate- in other words, a THIRD of people who got it died from it. As is the case for most things with a vaccine, there isn’t great treatment for it. ☠️ • In the late 1970s, India was suffering a huge smallpox outbreak, with 15,000 people dying in 6 months from the disease. India and the WHO worked together to vaccinate the population and by the following year, India had eradicated smallpox. 🙌🙌 • The last case of smallpox in the world 🌎 was actually at my Medical School in Birmingham, England in 1978. A lady who worked with a Professor helping to rid the world of smallpox with the WHO caught it in the lab. Tragically she died and the Professor took his own life. 😔 • To end on a happier note though, here’s an interesting article on the women who helped the effort in India: https://theconversation.com/these-memoirs-show-us-the-role-women-had-in-eradicating-smallpox-from-india-123897 🤗 • #vaccines #infectiousdiseases #womenempoweringwomen #vaccinations #research #globalhealth #india #globetrotter #medicalhistory #cows #medic #phdlife #microbiology #microbiologia #infection #outbreak #ladyboss #healtheworld #girlboss #dresmerelda #scicomm #historyofmedicine #doctorsofinstagram #doctors #showyourstethoscope #purplehair #friyay #lovemyjob
Regarding inner geek (chic): a spin on a recent post by the lovely @science.bae. If you didn’t see it, Sarah was talking about how she’s been guilty of being too bashful about her achievements in case she appeared to be bragging. ✨ • As a student when I went clubbing, my least favourite part of chatting to a guy was when they’d ask what I did: 🙈 • “I’m a med student.” 👩🏻 • “Oh so you’re going to be a nurse.” 👦🏻 • “Erm, no. A doctor.” 👩🏻‍⚕️ • [flustered] “Oh erm, well, I did ‘X’ exams and...” [cue short form CV] 👦🏻🤦🏻‍♀️ • So... several things here. 😳 1: nurses are awesome and we’re team mates- it’s just a different job, I’m not a pharmacist or a dietician either. ☺️ 2. Yes it probably says something about female-role assumptions which ought to put me off (and male ones too). 🚺 3. Yes it also says something about that guy’s self confidence... 🤷🏻‍♀️ 4. Yes, I could have just lied (and tried a couple of times or avoided the Q) but I’ve never been any good at it!! 😂 • With hindsight, I’m glad I didn’t lie. Because Sarah’s right- it’s NOT about bragging. I didn’t care what these guys did or how many A Levels they had. And as a result of not lying about my profession, I’ve managed to meet friends/partners that have been secure enough in themselves to realise this: ✨ • It doesn’t matter WHAT you geek out about, it’s just important you are enthusiastic about SOMETHING. Because geeks get ahead; and we can ALL learn from and teach each other in life, be it academic or otherwise. Embrace your inner geek folks 💪 • Thanks to lovely Phillipa for her photography skills ❤️ • #instascience #geek #geekgirl #womeninmedicine #womeninresearch #womeninstem #stemgirls #medic #researcher #phdlife #innerstrength #alwayslearning #workhard #livelife #vintageclothing #vintagestyle #vintagefashion #nurses #pa #steminist #microbiology #enthusiasm #dontcurbyourenthusiasm #teach #lifelessons #doctorslife #colourful #reachforthestars #lifegoals #inspo
“Behind every atom of this world hides an infinite Universe.” - Rumi ✨ • Just a little reminder to keep looking for beauty and knowledge in everything. Even fungal infections...! 😂 • #fungusamongus #microbiology #fungiphotography #nature #beautifulworld #researcher #mondaymotivation #labcoat #workhard #alwayslearning #infection #clinical #instascience #phdlife #biomedicalscience #inspirationalquotes #doctorsofinstagram #phdlife #yellow #laboratory #laboratorylife #mondaymood #stayhappy #medic #agar #agarart #scienceiscool #microbes
How contagious can TB be?! 🤔 • Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the full name of the bacterium that causes ‘TB.’ 🧫 Commonly it causes lung infections but it can affect any part of the body. When it’s in the lung, we worry about how contagious it might be. So how contagious is it, and why? 🤷🏻‍♀️ • First thing to say is that TB is absolutely treatable, it just needs a long course of specialised antibiotics. Get help and you’ll get sorted 🙌 When it’s infecting a person’s lungs, it can be spread in droplets as the person coughs or sneezes. So far so seemingly obvious, right? 😷 • But TB can do something AWESOME. 🥰 Under the right conditions it can just... hang... in the air, suspended there like some sort of wonderous, invisible teardrop-snowflake-artwork of mischief. ❄️💧❄️ It just stays there, falling in slow motion, waiting, until some unsuspecting soul inhales it and becomes infected. 🤯 • The good news is that for non-resistant cases, the infectivity of these patients goes down with even the first dose of treatment 💊 and almost certainly by the end of the first 2 weeks- that’s why these cases can be managed at home with support and advice. 🏡 As you now know though, TB’s sneaky- it’s a slow grower so it’s really important that patients keep going on the antibiotics for as long as the docs and nurses say: usually 6 months 💪 • Can anyone name a drug used to treat TB? 👇 💊 • Image: special Lowenstein-Jensen media slopes, designed to a precise slopage by a smart Biomedical Scientist Lab Manager in India 👏 • #tb #tuberculosis #friyay #biology #science #biomedicalscientists #inthelab #clinical #medstudent #infectiousdiseases #globalhealth #coughing #doctorsofinstagram #instamed #nurses #pa #instascience #microbiology #microbiologia #thrifty #smarts #dresmerelda #amazeballs #traveltheworld #learnsomethingnew #colorful #colourful #arty #geekgirl #lovescience
Why do we get colds and flu in the Winter? 🤧 • There are lots of theories on this one (though it is worth noting that some of these viruses actually prefer Summer so… 🤷🏻‍♀️): 👀 • humans huddle together with closed windows and doors in the Winter so it spreads more easily 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 • we don’t get much Vitamin D in the Winter because it’s darker (or there’s less sunlight to kill the virus) ☀️ • the flu virus and the common cold just like cold weather…? 🥶 • There is some truth to this last one in particular. We know that the Influenza Virus likes temperatures of about 33-37^C: that’s why it replicates (creates copies of itself) in your throat and nasal passages. In fact, scientists have made use of this by creating a version of the flu virus that replicates at lower temperatures like 27^C and squirting it up kids’ noses to make a live vaccine- it primes their immune system but can’t replicate elsewhere in the body to cause infection! 💃🏻 • We’ve also evidence that some influenza viruses like how dry the air is during the Winter. Have a read of this blog post from a PhD student at Harvard: http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2014/the-reason-for-the-season-why-flu-strikes-in-winter/ My favourite fact is that guinea pigs can get flu! 🐹 • #flu #fluseason #instascience #research #blogpost #microbiology #virology #infectiousdiseases #paediatrics #doctorslife #happydoctors #studygram #phdstudent #medicine #whitecoat #workstyle #stethoscopes #vintagefashion #vaccine #womeninmedicine #womendoctors #girlboss #respiratory #influenza #dresmerelda #blogpost #lovescience #doctorsoffice #medschool #scicomm
Just a day at the ‘office’ for an international medical researcher. You know, ‘standard’ *shrug* No biggie. #lovemyjob 💕 😜 • #phdlife #jetsetting #nepal #culture #youcanhaveitall #research #doctor #healthresearch #travelandwork #workabroad #lifeexperience #bhuddism #travelstyle #colourful #wandertheglobe #antibioticresistance #dresmerelda #scicomm #temple #globalhealth #researchlife #science #globetrotter #medical #medicine #pa #nurses #phdstudent #womeninstem
Coooorrr! This grows on your toenails- though obviously most people aren’t willing volunteers. However, Trichophyton rubrum is quite pretty on agar- its base is ‘blood-red.’ 👉 • Anyone know the name we give to a fungal of the foot and how to treat it? Extra points if you give the medical name and more if you know what the Latin means (answers on stories later in the week) 👇 • #fungus #fungi #fungusamongus #clinician #gp #sabplates #agarart #pretty #medic #inthelab #medstudent #clinicals #microbes #microbiology #microbiologia #infection #scicomm #scienceart #red #biology #postgrad #studygram #doctors #nurses #pa #doctorsofinstagram #doctorsoffice #medgram #fungilove #meded
Posters are a good way of bolstering your CV and making the most of going to conferences. The general format tends to be squares and text. I’m a big fan of making posters readable and attention grabbing- science IS fun after all! My poster was about viral infections so I decided to use a flu virus as the basis of my poster 🦠 • Do you have any tips for good conference posters? Share below 👇 • #fis19 #posterpresentation #research #academiclife #purplehair #dresmerelda #edinburgh #travelforwork #presentationskills #virology #flu #phdlife #viruses #doctorslife #medic #medstudent #nursing #pa #womeninstem #respiratory #workstyle #conference #cv #instascience #science #winteriscoming

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