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The Inevitable Career Search, The Final Installment

By CaleD, on March 5th, 2010

Man

I hope that I have been able to help some people discover a few more potential careers out there that don’t involve lab work. I’m going to discuss a few more that I have come across today and probably leave it up to you to find out the rest. I’m just here to wet your appetite, ultimately you’ll need to discover your own path – I can only help push you in the right direction.

Technical Writer

These individuals design, write and edit product manuals, handbooks or application notes. There isn’t as much creativity involved here as some people may like, but this career will challenge you to communicate effectively in writing. If the protocol for doing something isn’t clear, it is the problem of the technical writer. For more information about this type of job check out this link. http://bit.ly/aBlb3D

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March 5th, 2010 | Tags: | Category: Academic, Research, Science | Leave a comment

Culture And Facial Recognition: More Than Meets The Eye

By Greg Anderson, on February 18th, 2010

How do you examine others’ faces? Do you find it easy, difficult, or downright impossible to gauge the emotions of others in your daily interactions? You might be surprised to learn that your ability to perform these tasks is largely influenced by the culture that you grew up in, according to new research conducted by Caroline Blais at the Université de Montréal.

In two recent articles (PLoS One 3(8): e3022 (2008), Current Biology 19: 1543 (2009)), Blais argues that Caucasians and Asians do not examine faces in the same way, and thus will often gather differing emotional information from those they are interacting with. Specifically, Eastern cultures have a lower tendency to recognize negative facial expressions than Western cultures do. Why is that? And how is it even possible to quantify such a thing?

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February 18th, 2010 | Tags: | Category: Academic, Research, Science | 8 comments

The Inevitable Career Search, Part 2

By CaleD, on January 30th, 2010

Welcome back!

My last blog just scratched the surface of the many career options available to graduate students in the department of Medical Biophysics (or most graduate departments for that matter). So I’m going to discuss with you three more options today. Someone mentioned they’d be interested in hearing what a radiation physicist does, so I’ll try my best to answer that question.

Medical Radiation Physicist (Radiation Oncology Physics)

These advanced degree holders (typically a Ph.D. in medical physics) work in the hospital setting. Medical Radiation Physicists are involved in all aspects of radiation therapy. Their day to day responsibilities include ensuring that radiation emitting devices within the hospital are functioning properly, monitoring emissions and recommending safe dosages and treatment parameters. Radiation Physicists verify that the hospital is following established guidelines for the use of radiation. This career will expose individuals to radiation equipment design and enable them to research particular medical devices in order to make policy recommendations based on the findings.

Becoming a Radiation Physicist unfortunately requires more training. The program lasts 2 years and includes both a classroom portion (typically in the first year) and a clinical rotation portion (typically in the second year). Does this sound interesting? Here are some links to get you started.

The Toronto Residency Program in Radiation Oncology Physics http://bit.ly/aXOtTD
Radiation Oncology Physics: An in depth look (text book) http://bit.ly/9kVwcj


CT Scanner

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January 30th, 2010 | Tags: , , , , | Category: Academic, Research, Science, Technology | Leave a comment

Soy - Good And Good For You.

By Greg Anderson, on January 10th, 2010

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Soybeans. We’ve all seen it growing in the fields of Ontario, but soy-rich foods have traditionally been fairly absent from the Western diet. Asian diets, on the other hand, have typically been rich in soy products in the past, and it was always anecdotally noted that women from Asian countries suffered from much milder cases of menopause. The perceived reason behind this? Soy-based foods are rich in isoflavones, a major group of phytoestrogens. But can the addition of soy-rich foods to a woman’s diet help their health in any other important ways? According to Dr. Wei Lu’s research group from the Institute of Preventive Medicine in Shanghai, China, they most certainly can. Breast cancer recurrence and mortality, it would seem, are inversely associated with soy intake.

In research that was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (302: 2437 – 2443), Dr. Lu and his colleagues undertook a massive population-based cohort study that followed 5042 female breast cancer survivors in China for a period of 4 years after their diagnosis. The numbers were quite staggering: the 4-year mortality rates were 10.3% versus 7.4% for women in the lowest versus the highest quartiles of soy protein intake, respectively. Similarly, the 4-year recurrence rates were 11.2% versus 8.0% for the same groups. These are not trivial differences.

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January 10th, 2010 | Tags: , , | Category: Research, Science | 3 comments