Image credit: https://www.dnaweekly.com/blog/world-health-day/
April the 7th is annual World Health Day. This day, first celebrated in 1950, is led by the World Health Organisation (or WHO). Every year, this day has a different health-related theme, with this year’s being "Building a fairer, healthier world for everyone". With the raised awareness of health that this day brings, Girls into Geoscience – Ireland is using this opportunity to explore and raise awareness of a very sensitive issue, long-term medical conditions, and the geoscientist who balance these conditions and a successful career.
Medical conditions are many and varied. They can be seen, i.e. obvious to an outside observer, or unseen (in other words, you wouldn’t know if anyone had this condition unless they told you). Despite appearances, the latter can include some very serious conditions and long-term medical treatment. Some even require constant monitoring and management. It goes without saying that such conditions can take up a lot of time, and inevitably impact every part of a person’s life, including work.
Whilst officially classed as disabilities, those with such conditions rarely see themselves as disabled and even more rarely let it hold them back. The geoscientists featured in the blog posts this month certainly haven’t! In fact, one of them stressed that we should emphasise that “absolutely anyone can be a geoscientist. I can’t think of a single condition that would prevent that. In fact, it is such a diverse subject that it can accommodate a huge diversity of people and we’d still want more!”.
You can look forward to hearing from some of those people in our weekly blog series, commencing today. You can also find out more on any of the discussed medical conditions by following that links at the end of each post. So, enjoy the upcoming post as we continue to show that the geosciences are suitable for absolutely anyone and everyone as a career – and can also be a lot of fun!
Quick disclaimer: We at Girls into Geosciences – Ireland, do not pretend to be experts on any of the medical conditions presented in the upcoming blogs, or any of the issues raised therein. We are, however, always willing to learn, so if you would like to have a conversation with us about anything discussed in the post (or pretty much anything geoscience related!), then please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Please also bear in mind that any advice contained within the posts is strictly personal opinion of the author and if you’re worried about anything to do with a medical condition, you should always see a doctor as your first port of call.
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