Happy 200th birthday, John Snow!

Abstract:
We had a field trip for Outbreak this afternoon. We went to the Department of Health and Aging and it made me feel official, although I was scared I'd do something wrong because security was so tight and I'm a paranoid person.

Today was my last day for the Outbreak intensive week! Yay! I can sleep next week. In class we went through case studies and had presentations. In the afternoon, we went on a field trip. We went to the Department of Health and Aging in Woden to go and see the National Incident Room (NIR), which is where they set up a bunch of people if there's an outbreak that needs that sort of grand attention. It was really cool to go there. There is a bunch of security and we had to get visitor passes. The lanyard on my pass was an Australian government one, so it made me feel like a real Canberran.

They took us on a tour of the NIR, but first we had to lock our phones away. They wanted to make sure that we weren't going to give out any national secrets or something. I don't know. It felt weird not having my phone, though. After the tour, we went to the conference room and we sat around a board table and had a lecture. Sitting at the table made me feel official, too. It was pretty cool. Then we had a panel discussion with our lecturer, the MAE course convenor, some people from the Department of Health and Aging, people from other government health departments, and someone from Sweden's public health. One of the guys from the Department of Health and Aging was actually an MPH course-mate that we had last year! It was cool to see him in the workplace.

After the panel discussion, it was time to leave. I was glad to get my phone back. Then we went on a little "tour" around the outside of the building because we weren't sure where the taxis were coming to pick us up. There wasn't enough room for everyone in the taxis, so Karemah and I went back with Stephanie, our lecturer. It was funny because Stephanie couldn't find her car at first and we were kind of wandering around in the parking lot until we got close enough that the unlock worked and we could follow the noise. It was good to be able to talk to Stephanie on the way back. I told her that I'm really interested in epi and that last semester was really hard for me because of anthropology. She said that she was always interested in taking an anthro class, but she never did and now Karemah and I made it sound scary. Perhaps that's just with Graham, though. I think he'd try to eat her alive if she took his class. He hates epidemiologists!

Stephanie dropped me off by Davey before going back to NCEPH, which was really nice. I came home and watched some tv and then took a nap. Since I don't have class tomorrow, I wasn't too worried about setting an alarm. I ended up waking up at about 10, so I slept for about 3 hours. Clearly I was tired and I still am. I was having major trouble staying awake during our panel discussion this afternoon. When I woke up, I made dinner and that was about it for the night.

Oh and today is John Snow's birthday. He's one of the fathers of modern epidemiology and is most famous for his conclusion that a water pump was the source of a cholera epidemic in England in the 1800s. I don't think that you can start an epi-type course and not talk about John Snow the first day. He's a pretty important guy!