Huntsman Cancer Institute

 This past Friday, I had an opportunity to visit the Hunstman Cancer Research Institute in Salt Lake City with Y-Chem. Yes, I am in the chemistry club here (feel free to mock).  I was totally excited about the trip. As you may know, I am interested in going to pharmacy school at the University of Utah, and hopefully specializing in oncology. And since this institute is connected to the U, I was excited to hear about all the new research projects and everything that is going on at this very prestigious research institution.

Boy was I disappointed.

Unfortunately, it appeared that this tour was very much geared towards a "general" audience. I felt like it was more about how nice and pretty the facility was, rather than what new potentially life-changing research was going on. For example, our tour guide spent more time talking about this gigantic puzzle that is hanging on the wall than the research labs where ACTUAL CANCER RESEARCH WAS GOING ON! 

Maybe my expectations were too high, but I was definitely disappointed that I came out of the tour not knowing a single new thing about cancer research. I can tell you all about what new construction is going on and the menu served at the hospital's restaurant, if you're interested.

We even were scheduled to have a lecture after the tour, and I thought that surely we would talk about cancer research then. Fooled again! The hour long presentation was on the importance of cancer screening. Okay, I know that cancer screening is very important and everything, but pretty much all of the screens we talked about you are supposed to start getting around age 50. Awesome. It's a really good thing she was talking to an audience of 20ish CHEMISTRY students who all work in research labs and want to be health care professionals. 

As one of the guys in my group said, "I learned that I should be going into PR instead of medical school!"

Seriously.

Well I hope you enjoy the pretty pictures I took. 

What a cool puzzle.

The pretty ceiling.

The labs. Oh yeah, RESEARCH IS HAPPENING HERE!!!

Let's talk about the restaurant instead.