Faces of WISEST: Dr. Andrea Macyk-Davey

I participated in the SRP in 1997, in the immunology lab of Dr. Hanne Ostergaard.  Not only was it a great summer, but I was thrilled to be hired back the following summer before I began my BSc in Microbiology at the UofA.  I think those summer experiences really helped me land my next job at the Page microbiology lab in Biological Sciences, where I spent three happy summers and my fourth-year honours research project.  I have very positive memories of volunteering for the CHOICES and SET conferences during my undergrad degree, trying to make microbiology interesting. 

After my BSc, I moved on to a summer position in the Armstrong lab working on enteropathogenic E. coli, and I found out I had been accepted both into an MSc program and into medical school.  Although some find it hard to believe, it was a difficult choice to make. During medical school, I found myself happiest in laboratory medicine and was accepted into a General Pathology residency program, still at the University of Alberta.  Although I was no longer in a research lab, those technical and social skills I had learned starting way back in the Ostergaard lab came in very handy; I still remember having a technologist explaining the basics of PCR and I could answer "yup, been there, done it, had it not work!" 

I am now a staff pathologist at the Grey Nuns Hospital in Edmonton doing what I call "the ultimate in applied science", a Clinical Associate Professor at the UofA, and the Program Director for the General Pathology residency program, and am now trying to convince undergraduates and medical students how cool laboratory medicine is.