14 July 2015 (Tuesday) - Malaria Course

I went to London today for a practical course on the identification of malaria… I won’t say “what a waste of time” but it could have been better.
The session started with a lecture about various blood-borne parasites. Personally I would have benefitted from the slides having had a few less words and a lot more pictures.

And as for the practical session… The girl sitting next to me in the practical session was grumbling that what she was seeing down the microscope was shaking. She was genuinely surprised when I pointed out that everyone's microscopes were shaking because she was rhythmically bashing the bench in tune to the strange music in her head.
Another woman was employing a novel way to identify blood-bourne parasites. Rather than attempting to recognise salient features and elucidate a clinical history, she was making moral judgements. Apparently it stood to reason that God wouldn't allow humanitarian aid workers to contract malaria (!) and she got quite irate with the lecturer who dared to say it happened on a regular basis.


I must admit I did get a lot out of having the opportunity to spend uninterrupted time at a microscope with various slides of parasite films. But I could have got a lot more had I actually been able to get any time with the experts

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