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My Conversation Article… Contaminated Blood
‘They call us the fatherless ones’: the trauma of families devastated by the infected blood scandal will last for generations Sally-Anne Wherry, University of Gloucestershire and Hannah Grist, University of Bristol On the day of her uncle’s funeral in 1995, Jane’s life changed forever.* That was when she found out her uncle Edward, a person with haemophilia, had been infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) from the treatment he was taking for his condition. Adding to the family’s pain, the stigma that surrounded HIV and the disease it causes, Aids – because of its association with homosexuality and drug addiction – meant they kept the cause of Edward’s death to themselves.…
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The Scandal of Stolen Words and Stories
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Claude AI
Thanks to Inger Mewburn (@thesiswhisperer), I have been playing with Claude, her newest friend in academia. I’m impressed enough to pay for his services – I found him useful in critiquing my writing and seeking out weaknesses that I could not see in the familiar words. He proved helpful in exploring some resources and I used him in tandem with my brain in critiquing a paper. HOWEVER, and it is a rather large one, when I asked him to connect some dots, he started to lie to me. I wondered if he could find some relevant sources for me and so he eagerly provided some. Out of these, the 4th…
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Obsidian Notes as a Writing Tool?
In case you have been living under a rock (or just aren’t into geeky note taking programs), Obsidian Notes is a brilliant one that works using markdown and is created by you, so that it works with your brain and workflow. I am an absolute addict and have spent way too many hours playing with mine. It links between ideas for me, allowing those links to appear in my work – the graphic next to this is the lovely image I get when I view my whole library of notes. Each dot is a page, and those with many connections are bigger. One of the blue ones on the right,…
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The Scandal of Stolen Words and Stories
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Being seen and imposture syndrome…
Firstly, I am so deeply touched and honoured by someone reading my work, let along writing a blog about the importance of it. As a new researcher and someone who is trying to tell these stories to show the impact on each generation, just knowing it is having an impact is going to keep me going. The blog I am talking about is here – written by Dr Rich Gorman on Haemnet, which is the organisation running the journal I published in. We joke about imposture syndromes in PhD students but I assure you, it is a very real thing and, if you asked a room full of us which…
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The Scandal of Stolen Words and Stories
A story of plagurism
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Thesis Whisperer visit and Editorial Work!
I’ve been heavily focused on my work recently and really considered the advice someone gave me – consider the benefit to your career, vs the energy. Sometimes unpaid work is more beneficial to you than something paid that doesn’t contribute long term. Inger Mewburn Speaking of this, I mentioned in my last post that Inger Mewburn had kindly taken time out of her sabbatical to visit us at University of Gloucestershire and talk to the PGR group. We’re super grateful for that, because it brings a new perspective, particularly on the message around not burning yourself to the ground in your work! The book she recently published with Simon Clews…
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Talking to people outside of my bubble
I’m really excited about the opportunities that have come my way this last week – a current study on the psychological needs of people with haemophilia affected by the contaminated blood scandal meant I got to meet with some really amazing researchers whose interests meshed well with mine – a hopeful future collaboration! Finding passionate, talented people to work with is an amazing experience. I have been really lucky in finding women in research who put the ladder and a hand down to help me climb this mountain to become a researcher. I can’t say how brilliant my supervisors are, for example. Rather like having the best of aunts! I…
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First PhD Publication!
I’m delighted to say that the first publication for my PhD work has been accepted. The Journal of Haemophilia Practice (whose submission processes are smooth and swift) have been kind enough to publish this: If you want to read it in full, you can find it here: Wherry, S. A., Berragan, E., & Jennings, R. (2023). The Impact of the Contaminated Blood Scandal on the Next Generation. The Journal of Haemophilia Practice. This is the partner piece to one I have submitted and not yet heard about. This one of the literature review, seeking the current literature on the impact of the contaminated blood scandal on the adult children of those…
