Community Connection
For my community connections post I chose to interview biologist/Research manager for a lab out of UBC Kate Del Bel. I decided to do my interview with her because I spent a lot of my time in BC children’s hospital, because I was diagnosed with crohn’s disease when I was in the 6th grade, alongside a few other things. So when I was there, I had to get all kinds of X-rays, MRI’s, colonoscopies, and IV’s. And I still do this just to this day. Also, when I am older I would really like to work in the field of science/medicine because it seems really interesting, and it has some good benefits.
Who is Kate?
Kate Del Bel is some (like I said previously) who works out of a lab in UBC who also studies pediatric immunology (like rare diseases in kids). She used to be a biologist, but now she just manages others. Before she would go into BC children’s hospital a lot more, but now she works from home mostly. (In this picture it’s meant to say UBC not IBC)
The Interview
The interview was over a facetime call, but we also communicated through IMessage’s previously. But I got all of my information primarily through the FaceTime. The answers are also not her exact words, but just the notes I took during our call.
Question 1: Can you explain your roles and responsibilities with your current position?
Her answer: I am a manager at a research lab out of UBC. I righting grands, I hire and fire people, and I come up with new ideas.
Question 2: What obstacles have you faced to get you where you are today?
Her answer: I had to get a Bachelor of Science, and a masters, if you want to get any kind of job like this you really need it. I also had to find a lab capable of getting money. (as bad as that sounds she says).
Question 3: What advice would you pass on to someone interested in what you are doing?
Her answer: You need a bachelors for sure. You needed time working in a lab before. You had to have done some stuff like this in the past (previous experience in this field) Have experience with different kinds of sciences.
Question 4: Why are you passionate about your job or role?
Her answer: She loves working with doctors at hospitals, and finding patients with rare or unknown diseases. Then trying to identify/cure the disease. She said that that can be really life changing for someone.
Question 5 (my question): “Has the pandemic changed your role in what you do? If so, how?”
Her answer: Yes. Before I worked in a lab. But during the pandemic, I worked at home. I would go in 1 day a week to the lab. 1 benefit of that is that there is less driving, and that saves a lot of time.
Question 6 (my second question): “what is the best part of your job?”
Her answer: Like I said before, when you have patients that you’ve been able to treat their diseases, and knowing that you just changed someone’s life so drastically for the better. That is the best feeling is knowing you did something good.
What I learned from the call
Before going into this I didn’t know too much about doing anything science/medicine related, other than that you would have to go into university, then med school if you were thinking about medicine. But, now I know that if I were to go into the field that Kate is currently in, I would need a Bachelor’s and a Master’s.
Another piece of advice she gave me is that it’s better to go into kids medicine rather than adults, because lot’s of the time kids are easier to deal with that adults, and sometimes adults can be “big babies”. Which is a helpful piece of advice if I were to pursue my dreams of becoming a doctor.
After talking to her, I only wanted to go into medicine more. I really feel like I can make it as a doctor.
In the end of this project, I actually learned a lot more useful information than I thought I would. I learned about what you might need to get a job like this, and I learned what the best, and worst parts of having a job like this might be like.
Thank you so much to Kate. You were really easy to work with, and you gave me some good insight as to what having a job like this would be like.
Some links to some of Kates work:
Our Team | BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute (bcchr.ca)
