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Asked by anon-220081 to Rebecca, Nina, Rachel on 4 Jun 2019. This question was also asked by anon-220436, anon-221053.
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Rebecca Moon answered on 4 Jun 2019: last edited 4 Jun 2019 11:12 am
There are lots of downsides to being a hospital doctor, in particular the shift work. I was at work this weekend whilst my family were out enjoying the sunshine. And nightshifts can be really tiring, but in many ways I enjoy nightshifts as the hospital is much quieter and I can concentrate on looking after the patients.
The worst part of being a children’s doctor is always having to give a parent and a child a life-changing diagnosis, or when a child dies. We do our best to make it less hard for the child and family, but it is still always sad.
But there are lots of positive aspects of my job too, and generally the good parts outweigh the negatives.
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Nina Rzechorzek answered on 8 Jun 2019:
It’s when I have to euthanase an animal that it is suffering simply because we don’t have any effective treatments for their particular condition – sadly this happens quite often in neurology but I am very optimistic that with enough people working in this research area, the opportunities for treatment will change massively in the next 10-15 years.
Comments
Ettie commented on :
Sitting at a computer all day! I have some sporting injuries that makes it uncomfortable to sit for long periods of time. Luckily everyone is happy with my wandering around the building during the day.
Emma commented on :
I think there are downsides to every job, but as long as the positives outweigh the negatives I don’t mind too much. Sometimes I need to travel for work meetings, and it’s nice being outside of the office and meeting with people, but it does involve planning and time spent traveling long distances it can be exhausting, but I try and balance this out with other projects in the office. A lot of jobs involve paperwork and working from a computer, and so this can become repetitive. For me, I try and work on projects which excite me and also achieve a work-life balance, so even if I’m stuck doing paperwork I have something fun outside of work to look forward to.
Ryan commented on :
While I get to work on a lot of varied projects that have different underlying biology some of the work can be repetitive. You can often use a very similar technique for a lot of varied experiments.
That and aliquoting reagents, no one enjoys making 200 aliquots of a reagent!
Nina commented on :
It’s when I have to euthanise an animal that it is suffering simply because we don’t have any effective treatments for their particular condition – sadly this happens quite often in neurology but I am very optimistic that with enough people working in this research area, the opportunities for treatment will change massively in the next 10-15 years.
Helen commented on :
I think for me the washing up is the worst thing 😂
We have a lab dishwasher but somethings still have to be done by hand.
The job can be repetitive because you are running the same tests on different batches – it sounds awful but sometimes I long for a problem just to mix things up a bit.
And being in the pharmaceutical industry we have an awful lot of rules and regulations and guidelines which can be a little tedious at times but it’s a good job and I’m glad I’m doing it.