Family Adventure

Family Adventure

• Anne Hammer Lauridsen
• 2014
• 5:00

For years i’ve dreamt about living, studying and doing high quality research in another county. Before i started my PhD project at Aarhus University on HPV and cervical cancer i began searching for the right place to go for a research stay abroad. Since my research topic, among others, is on HPV latency my goal was to work and collaborate with the best researchers in that area. And where else should i go than to Patti Gravitt at University of New Mexico’s Health Sciences Center. Fortunately, Patti agreed that i could come and we are now collaborating and exchanging knowledge. I learn a lot from her, but she also learns from me. I am so happy and lucky that my husband has been supporting and encouraging the entire time. He agreed to take leave from his work in Denmark so he and our three children could go with me and we changed the mortgage in our house to reduce our costs in Denmark. We chose that our children should not stay home with their dad while living in the US as we wanted them to engage and be integrated in the community they live in, to learn and experience a different culture and learn to speak a different language. It sure has been a chock for them to be separated from their grandparents, their cousins, and their friends and to live in another country where they don’t understand the language, however, we strongly believe they will learn a lot from it. And who knows, perhaps they will return to the US when they grow older – and perhaps with their own children. As a researcher, medical doctor, a wife, and a mother I have already gained more from our stay here than I have ever imagined even tough we have only lived here for 2 months. As a family we have experienced kindness, helpfulness, and generosity from people at UNM, from the school and pre-school, from neighbours,yes almost from everybody so it is easy to fell welcome. No wonder that the United States is the land of opportunities ;-)