Kidneys, hormones & posters

When I applied to MSci Applied Medical Sciences I hoped this course would lead me to the research world. I became certain of this since my first term at UCL, when we were asked to create a poster for the Kidneys, Hormones and Fluid Balance module (MEDC0004).

Actually, before the beginning of Term 1 I didn’t even know that researchers presented posters at conferences: I had no idea of what a poster looked like! Luckily, I wasn’t the only student in this situation, and we were given guidance on designing and presenting posters during our small group teaching sessions.

The task was to hypothesise the cause of Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown aetiology in Central America. In other words, we had to explain the pathophysiology of a disease whose cause is not known and back up our theory with evidence from research articles. This was our first group assignment too: a chance to improve on communication and group work skills, to learn from others and make new friends.

I was proud of the final outcome when I saw it printed out: I thought it looked great (although I admit some of the graphs were a bit too small). During the presentation, I loved feeling like a young researcher: I truly hoped this was just the first of many posters in my career as a scientist.