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    In the Loop: The art of finding beauty in dreadful, wonderful parasites

Dr. Bobbi Pritt in a lab, looking through a microscope

Bobbi Pritt, M.D., spends her work hours identifying and diagnosing infectious diseases. In her free time she celebrates their beauty by creating bug-related artwork and blogging about parasites.  


You can talk about the art and science of medicine. But few live it out quite like Bobbi Pritt, M.D. The art-major-turned-parasitologist is director of the Clinical Parasitology Laboratory at Mayo Clinic. She also has a pretty serious side hustle turning her work into art. Although this is a side hustle that's just about fun and education.

"I am currently working on a parasite coloring book, and also have some 'arts and crafts' projects where I am embedding ticks in resin so that they can serve as long-lasting teaching displays," she writes on ID-Hub.com. That's in addition to the calendars, phone cases, miniskirts and other items she's created from enlarged images of creepy crawly things like tapeworms, lice nits and ticks. (Oh my!)

wood tick showing degree of engorgement
Wood tick - showing degree of engorgement. Courtesy Dr. Bobbie Pritt

Dr. Pritt gives the items as gifts and has made them available online. In May, she took first place in the annual Art in Pathology contest hosted by Mayo Clinic's Division of Anatomic Pathology. There were 41 entries, so clearly she's not alone in saying "Ahh!" where others might say "Eww!" Read the rest of the article.
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This story originally appeared on the In the Loop blog.