Animal research

[fishbait63]

About to start animal research and was just thinking whether anyone had bad experiences with this during interviews... or with just talking to their friends I'm not worried just the thought went into my mind during lunch

It would especially interesting to hear from people who work with less common animals... rabbits, chimps, dogs...zebra fish

any other comments are appreciated

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[ShinyDome19]

I work with rodents, primarily mice....During medical school interviews and research lab interviews Iv never had a problem discussing it. Since you interview with physicians or PhDs, they generally undertand the need for such work. With the everyday folk though, I never mention the fact that I work with animals...you never know how people will react to it, so no need to bring it up...besides, i consider it to be the worst part of my job, its definately not something I want to have a conversation about with someone.

 

[woo]

I actually worked with rabbits. It was an amazing experience. I'm not sure what kind of role you will have in your animal study, but I was involved with all aspects of it, animal handling, surgery, euthanasia, etc. I learned tons and it was very interesting.

It however does take a lot of time commitment. Usually, whenever we had a procedure I would spend the whole day doing it. And I mean whole day, from like 9 am - 8 pm sometimes. However, I would only do that like once a week or once every two weeks. Again it depends on your study. I definitely suggest you do it if you have the chance.

 

[Jrsharp70]

Oops, misread post

 

[Jrsharp70]

Rabbit, pig and dog models and zebra fish are common. I did vascular surgery on rabbits and it gave me something to talk about with the committee. Even talked about why some didn't survive. They were actually very interested and we spent several minutes talking about different theories on what went wrong. They were more interested in my analysis and what i learned than the ethics of killing Thumper.

 

[bravofleet4]

!!!dance mice dance!!! muahhahaha

 

[fishbait63]

I'm definitely interested in it... after hearing that other people were working with rabbits and didn't get a big "wow I can't believe you do that to rabbits" I much more relieved. In my old lab we worked with mice but it just seems much more accepted to work with rats/mice....

 

[CyclistOK]

You shouldn't get any flak on animal research from your medical school interviewer. All of my interviewers were interested in my research, and is was easy to talk about because I knew alot about it (as is expected i suppose).

 

[sewcurious]

I did research with macaques, never had anyone make anything negative of it in interviews. I was able to tie what i learned directly into my desire to become a doctor, so really it was a positive if anything. GL.

 

[298609]

I did research with macaques, never had anyone make anything negative of it in interviews. I was able to tie what i learned directly into my desire to become a doctor, so really it was a positive if anything. GL.

sooooo jealous right now

 

[sewcurious]

sooooo jealous right now

Not all that exciting. I imagined it being some kind of Disney Princess thing. In reality the animals that I interacted with most were not treated well (psychologically) and thus were not very nice to me. I was scartched and had mutiple things thrown at me. Utter failure. Then I got to code their behavior for hours in front of a tv screen. It just convinced me I was never gonna be a researcher.