IBD Around the World in 56 Days

So I graduated university this spring and without the blink of an eye, I was back in school...about a month later. Being a Masters student is completely opposite from life as an undergrad. I have no classes, no real professors, no timetables or hours of studying. I have none of that. For me everyday I come in and get to do my own work from my very own lab bench.

I'm really lucky, where I work is a huge group of researchers and clinicians (people like your GI) who are working hard to find answers and cures. Farncombe has gained international reputation as one of the top 10 gastrointestinal research groups in the world (http://farncombe.mcmaster.ca/) and this is the best part! By being apart of such a research group the people you meet is remarkable.

I started here just 8 weeks ago. Each week we take part in seminars, where we get international researchers and scientists to come down to McMaster. For a Crohn's patient, it was remarkable to see that all over the world, there are hundreds of thousands of high caliber researchers dedicated to finding a cure. IBD brings a lot of questions. Without a known cause, it's hard to know where to start. It's almost like finding an answer when you don't know the question. But there are a tonne of people dedicated to this, a tonne of people who care. A tonne of brillant minds working to find a cure.

It was this that I found to be the most influential part of my Masters programme so far. I love the science and the experiments and all that fun stuff, but the people, the people have made all the difference. Knowing that this much time, energy, money, thought, have gone into finding a cure, it gives me more hope than anything has so far. It's easy to get frustrated or upset with all the unknowns which stem from IBD but when you step back and take a look at all the efforts which are going in....it’s impossible to feel anything but hope. The answers, the cure, they're just around the corner. It’s just a global race to the finish line.

Yours in Good Health,

Steph :)