#said error might have screwed up another chief researcher's work so it was quite the big deal

[skelayton-lord]

@angelofthemornings Making this a proper reply-post because as a reply it might end up being too big.

The field is very vast, but the most common would be the person that runs the tests a physician asks you to and signs the paper to validate the results - we can be found doing your bloodwork, urine, biochem analysis (which all falls under clinical analysis/clinical pathology), and many other fields like radiology (x-rays, tomography, etc), acupuncture, embryology... here in Brazil we can have up to 29 licenses, each one corresponding to a different field. Some of these you can come out of university ready to work due to experience in your internship, but some others will require a specialization course or a master's - like acupuncture and radiology.

My license is in clinical pathology, but I've also spent a year in a specialization/expertise program (after getting my bachelor's degree) in laboratorial surveillance for diseases of public health interest, with a focus on diagnostic tools of immunology (serology tests) and molecular biology (mostly real time Polymerase Chair Reaction - PCR).

So I'm both licensed to work in any hospital or particular lab to run tests (with the objective of a diagnosis), and to work with the government in public health surveillance (where the objective here isn't a diagnosis, it is to confirm cases of a disease in a certain population and keep an eye out on how it behaves throughout the year, epidemiology).

I was about to decide between a Master's or a "direct" Doctorate (a Doctorate that "skips" a Master's and lasts longer than the usual Doctorate program) but then the pandemic came and many internship deals crashed, unless you were in virology, as that became the main and only focus of research at the time. I tried for a spot in the State's Strategic Lab, but it was interview-only and for only 1 candidate - I was placed 4th.

With that, my grandma's health also began to deteriorate, so I've been staying home since then to help care for her.

But 4 years later, I've started to job hunt again, and I'm now afraid I might be overqualified (and thus, "more expensive") to employers, as so far I havent gotten any return from my applications. I quite miss and wish to return to academia, sometimes, and with the State's lab, but I have a love-hate relationship with academia and it takes them forever to open up sign-ins for employees. Working in public health was my best time though, really, so if the opportunity arises, I'll be trying my chance there again - I did leave in good terms, and a lot o the chief researchers there wanted to work with me.