• Question: does it ever make you feel bad if you cant help people?

    Asked by anon-220735 to Nina, Ettie on 14 Jun 2019.
    • Photo: Nina Rzechorzek

      Nina Rzechorzek answered on 14 Jun 2019:

      I think this is what keeps driving me to continue my research – in the hope that someday I can help patients who currently have few or no treatment options for their condition. It can be very frustrating not to get ‘quick answers’ but if you go into research you have to accept that some questions take a long time to answer. I very much hope that I will see a positive impact of these research efforts in my lifetime, but at the very least, what I work for is the idea that this will make a lasting contribution to biomedical knowledge that will directly/indirectly change lives for the better – this might not happen until long after I’m gone. It may be that another much smarter person is inspired by my work and uses it to develop some amazing new treatments – this would make me very happy!

    • Photo: Ettie Unwin

      Ettie Unwin answered on 15 Jun 2019:

      Wanting to help people is certainly the reason that I stopped doing my previous research in engineering and moved into infectious disease modelling. I feel really lucky that I have received my education and I want to use it to help as many people as possible. I don’t really deal directly with people in my day to day job but work with policy makers to try and reduce the overall disease in a country. It certainly helps motivate me to work hard and check all my findings.

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