AT A recent conference on the future of the NHS workforce, I heard a speaker use the term 'physician extender' (PE) to describe nurses who are licensed by doctors to provide quasi-autonomous health care.

Discussing parasites over dinner requires particular company – like the “Parasite Ladies,” our circle of six female graduate students. Since discovering our mutual interest in disease ecology, we have supported each other’s research endeavors during weekly dinners. While we plan to sustain our support through lifelong research careers, current trends predict that 2 of the 6 of us will leave sci...