The Time I Spent a Week Surrounded by Biochemists talking about Pallidal Neurostimulation. 

Through my dad I have had the most amazing experiences. He introduced me to ice cream at the age of two, got me into fencing at age 14, has taken me to meet Brian Cox and has shared with me many a good movie.

Last summer, through his work, he gave me the amazing opportunity to do a week of work experience at one of the most prestigious journals there is: The Lancet.

Now many biologists reading this may have this reaction: 'Oh my God, how did you get that?! You don't even want to read biology at university!'

And you would be right.

While I think biology is cool, I don't have too much interest in reading biology or biochem at university. So for me The Lancet was a way to go and experience what the rigorous process which articles go through before they reach the pages of The Lancet.

I spent the week learning how the journal worked, from the editors who sat around me rapidly typing statistics and very scientific language into English that most people can read, to the PR people who organise press releases for scientists who have discovered new and amazing things.

I learned how The Lancet receives hundreds of papers every week and has to sift through them all to find the diamonds in the rough. They can then spend weeks polishing that diamond as they correspond back and forth with the writers of the paper to make the paper into the best it can be. After each edit the paper has to be sent for peer review. This is when a group of people read the article and tell the journal what they think of it, how accurate it is and how relevant it is to the journal. If the peer reviews say things need to be changed then those things need to be changed by the editors who have to contact the authors to make the changes. Once these changes are made the papers are sent to peer review who then send them back...

As you can see it's an endless process of compromise to make everyone happy.

The opportunity was incredible, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Though I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't had a cold that made me feel like death warmed up.

I wrote a blog piece for The Lancet Student ranting about how horrible it was to be working at such an amazing medical journal and to have a cold. Because none of the Editors were working on articles on how to cure the common cold and as I was snuffling into far too many tissues I felt very depressed
The experience was fascinating, it exposed me to a different part of natural sciences. (Another blog piece will follow about my view on our splitting of science)

The chance to get work at any journals is fantastic for scientists. It gives you the opportunity to see what processes you will need to go through to get your journals published if you are a researcher in the future. Whether you want to do material sciences or biochemistry, work experience at a journal whether or not it focuses on your area of interest looks good on a CV.

And who knows? You may go into a work placement wanting to be a neurologist and come out fascinated by chemical engineering!