I have not posted about what it is I am doing in India yet because I have been really busy. So, as I mentioned before, I am working with the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). It’s a relatively large organization (80 employees) with some relatively important people. The office that I’m working is really nice – a three-floor building filled with window offices for the important people and cubicles for the not-so-important people (most of whom still have the Dr. prefix… and me!). Now for the science babble:
What I am doing is mapping the institutional laboratory capacity to combat zoonotic disease in India. A zoonose is a pathogen that passes from vertebrate animals to humans, which accounts for roughly 70% of all infectious diseases (rabies, anthrax, Japanese encephalitis, avian flu etc). Because of the nature of zoonoses, the parties contributing to the research on this topic span several sectors. Scientists within the realms of human health, veterinary practice, infectious disease specialties and wildlife health are all contributing research, yet the distribution of this research is really only done within their own respective work silos. Thus, within a specialty that already has sparse resources and funding, professionals are unable to work efficiently, as it is not known who is doing what in what sector. Enter me. My job is essentially to compile a database consisting of all the research institutions in India currently contributing to zoonotic combatance in some laboratory capacity, listing also the key information associated with each lab. The rationale behind this is that when this information is disseminated, it will promote inter-professional collaboration, make it easier to mobilize public health outbreak interventions, and provide accurate information to funding bodies, highlighting neglected or duplicated areas of research.
So, what I’m doing is a lot of data entry, but at least its data entry with a purpose. The workday here starts at 10am (WOO!) and goes until 6. So, I work those hours within the office. There are a lot of really great people at PHFI, and my floor (3rd floor, whaaaaat uuuuuup?) is the best place to be. There are quite a few young people (when I say young, I mean 25-30; Malik and I are the only ones under 25), and most of them are American educated. It’s a good time. We went out to our first Bollywood movie in India with a bunch of them, and Malik and plan to organize a bowling night in the near future – the nearby bowling alley is glow in the dark and has a live DJ ☺. I like my work so far, and the people are great and super helpful, even though a lot of them have credentials that, when though about, can be quite intimidating.
Well, that’s all for now… I’ll post something that’s more fun soon.
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