We took a break from our usual WEP activities at NCSU to visit Grifols – a pharmaceutical company – in RTP. We were given a thorough tour of a model plasma donation center and the company’s R&D labs, but one of the many highlights of our visit has to be the discussion panel we had with some of the people who work there.
During that panel, we gained a good sense of what lab work was like – sometimes things go wrong in mysterious ways, but ultimately, the real thing that holds lab workers back are redundant federal regulations (and the like). We heard interesting stories of how the panelists ended up where they were: some of them thought that they wanted to become doctors, but found that they liked a more lab-based field of science. And they all seemed to truly enjoy what they do and were happy with it. This was especially refreshing to hear amidst the noisy pressures that coerce high schoolers to become doctors or lawyers in the pursuit of being in a good place in life.
I’m hoping to replace this image with one of us from the discussion panel, but we have to wait for our host to make sure she has the authorization to release the photos of us first. But as sort of a placeholder, here’s one of Grifols’ donor centers – Grifols’ work involves the use of plasma, so plasma collection/donation is an important part of their process!
