Dr. Rachel Ruhlen is a Research Assistant Professor at A.T. Still University of Health Sciences in the A.T. Still Research Institute. Her current research projects include osteopathic manipulation in a rat model of ankle pain, and developmental exposure to endocrine disruptors in a rat model of breast cancer.
The opinions expressed here do not reflect the opinions of any institution or organization that Dr. Ruhlen is or has been employed by or affiliated with.
This is the blog of my professional alter ego, Dr. Ruhlen (one of the half-dozen or so Dr. Ruhlens out there). This is the home of my professional passions, which change as quickly as the seasons. One current passion is the people of science, particularly the early investigators. Our system is unstable for them (us), and that means it is unstable for everyone.
My science interests are, or have been: Pain, osteopathic medicine, breast cancer, rat models, exercise, the sociology of exercise, the physics of bicycling, herbal contraceptives, endocrine disruptors, anything about gender differences, and more. I pick up new interests frequently.
Related interests include a morbid fascination with research fraud (at one point I dreamed of one day working for the Office of Research Integrity), communicating science to the public, and computer programming as it relates to research. Like developing a rat database to track my breast cancer rat breeder colony.
Obviously it is “communicating science to the public” that inspired this blog. More than explaining science to people, I want to let people, especially young high school or college aged students who say “I’m going to be a doctor and my back up plan is grad school”, know what it looks like from the inside. My agenda is NOT to attract people to research, nor to drive them away. My agenda is to educate and inform, so they can enter a career or not with their eyes open, not the way I did.