In the pursuit of financial gain or research, students and faculty across the University have had to immerse themselves in some pretty dirty jobs. In the arena of science, the department of epidemiology (study of distribution and control of diseases) and the College of Veterinary Medicine have put their students through some pretty foul tasks.

Graduate students Michelle Rowland and Sarah Murphy, both students of epidemiology and community health, spent two summers driving across the Midwest in a company car, visiting state parks and wildlife refuges. Their job? To collect ticks in the quest for research on Lyme disease.

“I think the worst part of it was when I had this huge tick stuck up in my belly button. I couldn’t get it out,” Murphy said. “I burned it, then tried to pull it out with tweezers, but only pieces of it would come out. I had to leave a part of it in me and check for infection.”

Rowland, an organizer of the project, would go out with students to a designated park, and a random algorithm of steps and directions would take the researchers into the thick of the woods. Dragging thick woven sheets behind them designed to catch ticks and crawling insects, the students would trudge through brambles and thorns, spider webs and mud, and then pause every 10 meters to stop and carefully pick ticks off the sheet and drop them into vials of ethanol.

But more often than not, the researchers would take their work home with them.

“I remember having people pull ticks off my back. Sometimes when I was driving to another park, a large tick would crawl across the dashboard, or on my legs,” said Murphy. “And the nymphs are the worst. You look down and see what looks like black dust on your legs, and you realize that it’s hundreds of baby ticks.”

Each embedded tick pulled off of a student had to be sent for specific testing, and the students were always careful to check for signs of a bull’s-eye mark where they were bitten.

“That’s the signature mark of Lyme disease, although [the bull’s-eye rash] doesn’t always appear. There’s a risk there,” said Murphy.

Other researchers take health risks, too. This past summer, a different corps of students set out to create ideal environments for mosquitoes that can harbor the West Nile virus. The students worked in designated hot spots around the suburbs of Chicago.

But what if your class was a dirty job? Unlike taking what might be a dreaded class in organic chemistry, or perhaps a foreign language, veterinary students have to possess a strong constitution – and stomach – for their work.

Denise Cudiamat, a fourth-year grad student in veterinary medicine, recently spent a significant amount of time spaying and neutering pets. That may not seem so bad, until you see her at work. Friends and family are shocked by photos of what is actually routine surgery.

“Veterinary students have a very rigid and set curriculum; it’s very demanding,” said Chris Beuoy, director of communications at the College of Veterinary Medicine.

“They have also traveled abroad to do some pretty dirty work. Some went to Uganda to trap rats, looking for disease. Some others collected monkey, um, ‘samples,'” Beuoy said.

The class curriculum is almost military in fashion. Each student, according to his or her year, has a set agenda of classes that start early in the morning and continue throughout the day and is identical to that of peers in the program.

This week, second-year students studying parasitology were told to bring in fecal matter from their pets to be analyzed in class. Students who didn’t have pets had to go look for some pet waste elsewhere.

“I brought a sample from my dog,” said second-year veterinary student Laura Bukowski. “I’m actually going to check for (parasite) eggs.” Someone from the back of the class added that another student was forced to ask a stranger for his pet waste, causing the group to chuckle.

“We split the students into two groups. Yesterday one group went, and today the second half is working on their samples,” said Beuoy.

Lab coordinator Dr. Bridget Shackleford said students test different fecal matter each week.

“We have previously collected fecal matter from the University farm. We do find parasites, but they’re common – not any of the types that cause disease,” said Shackleford. “It doesn’t smell too bad right now, but if you stick around it will.”

Each veterinary student totes a baggie full of animal waste, collects a smaller sample out of the bag, and adds water to make a liquefied solution. They check the solution under the microscope, hunting for parasites. Once liquefied and out of the bags, the waste makes the lab take on an air of a dog park and dozens of litter boxes.

“Isn’t this fun?” asked veterinary parasitologist Dr. Allan Paul.

The students, in spite of the atmosphere, are pretty serious and are soon busy peering through microscopes and recording data. “Actually, this stuff isn’t that bad. You should try chopping up rats for the raptors,” said second-year veterinary student Megan Kees.

The faculty has faced some pretty messy work, too. Dr. Tony Goldberg, who recently transferred to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, worked with monkey scat. Dr. Ronald Weigel, also a pathobiologist at the University, collected a decade of research on swine farms. His job was to study the cross contamination of cat feces that mixed with swine feed and habitats, which can transfer a parasite that causes toxoplasmosis. According to the College of Veterinary Medicine, the infected pigs can cause severe health effects and death when consumed as undercooked pork. Some people can even suffer from encephalitis – the swelling of the brain.

Without these scientists and their students and student workers, valuable data and research is never collected. These people save the lives of animals and humans, keeping our environment and health safer and sounder, from collecting ticks to searching for parasites in monkey scat.

“Sometimes you gotta just get dirty,” Kees said.