Ladies Who Lab #4 Esmeralda

Ladies Who Lab is back and this time we have Esmeralda from My Bugs and I. Unlike my past two guests I don't work with her but she all too eagerly stepped forward to write for me. Esmeralda as you will find out has had a longer career in science than I and it is amazingly clear how passionate she still remains to be. Without further ado here is Esmeralda.

When I saw Sarahjane ask if there were any female scientists in her blogging network, I jumped at the opportunity; it’s not often that this happens! 

I think my love for Science was a given for me when I got born in a family with grand-parents and countless uncles in farming and agriculture, a vet for a dad who started studying medicine before switching to vet medicine, and a brother and a cousin studying to be vets too!

My first experiments date back from when I was a small child observing bees collecting pollen from flowers, describing shiny stones with quartz-like surfaces, gathering different types of shells from the beach and organizing them in colours, shapes, and sizes - and all these experiments were documented in various (lab) books! A few years later, I started an obsession with the moon and stars as I realised our world was not just the one we could see with our eyes.

When I discovered chemistry, it seriously slapped me in the face! It was like another mystery door was opening: life revealing itself! By then, I knew we were made of tiny particles and we were ourselves particles in the grand scheme of things – that realisation just blew my mind! So naturally, I chose to do a degree in chemistry.

I then went on to live the best and – somehow – easiest 10 years of my life with a master, a PhD, and 2 postdocs working on diverse topics such as diabetes, obesity, prion disease, neurodegenerative diseases, and cancer. Life in the lab was frustrating and challenging but it was immensely rewarding and a privilege to be able to work, share, and present to world-renown scientists.

I’m not a research scientist anymore because, after my maternity break, I discovered a whole new world out there for out-of-lab scientists like myself: healthcare communications (including medical communications, advertising, PR, market access, market research, and health economics)!

To get in there though, I first had to start building some writing experience, which I did with my first blog Science So Sexy. Twenty interviews and five writing tests later, I got my first job outside of academy, aka the Holy Grail, in an advertising agency as a medical copywriter. My role, in brief, was to participate in brand/product creative and medically strategic marketing development, e.g. ads, emails, sales reps materials for doctors.

Although terribly exciting, I was missing my strong academic background and quickly switched to medical writing in medical communications, rather than advertising. Now, I mainly write educational programmes for doctors on various conditions and diseases - sort of recycling courses for nurses, GPs, and specialists. What I love about it is that I get to study many diseases while learning about pharmaceutical companies, how the NHS work, what is the life of doctors and nurses, and what we can do to help them do their job and help their patients… Help patients, isn’t that amazing?

Ultimately, I may not be in the lab finding the latest cure, but I make sure that the latest cure is known by doctors.

Thank you to Esmeralda for her words. I think we can all agree she is an inspiration to future female scientists. Please check out her blog My Bugs and I.

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