Cancers, Cadavers, & Cato

Fran Cato

Fran is the Education Officer at the Museum of Human Diseases at UNSW. Like her typical day, today she spent some time showing a high school group around the museum. The exhibition includes specimens of diseased body parts and artefacts as well as posters on common diseases and disorders. The school tour aims to “make classroom living more real,” Fran says. Rather than talking about diseases they can actually see the effects on the organs. The tour involves an introductory talk, allowing them to play around with medical software at the computer labs, then a tour around the museum with a work sheet they are asked to fill in. Sometimes, they find something they are interested in and want to look into it further. She enjoys many parts of her job, for example, when she shows the students a lung with emphysema, “the kids often turn to the one person who smokes, and they make a pact never to smoke again, well not for the next five minutes anyway!” She still uses the teaching skills she learnt and networks she made at high schools to make her job easier. Fran loves this job as it is like what she used to do – being a high school teacher – but does not require as much exertion of discipline. “I don’t have to focus on the discipline too much [as its only a 2hr tour] but still make kids enthusiastic about science,” she says. And because the kids are coming to a new place they tend to listen more.” Fran enjoyed her time as a science teacher; however, it took over her life too much. Here at the museum, she is happy doing "a bit of everything". Fran has many other interests. For example, she is doing a university degree by distance education on the topic of information literacy. She believes this skill is important to have these days as we are bombarded with a lot of information and have to become better learners. “Down the track, what I would really like to do is try to bring technology into the lab… use it in some way to get a message across, and encourage people to become independent learners.” Fran with Jo at the Museum of Human Diseases at UNSW Written and edited by Catherine Beehag