For a long time, Isabelle (not her real name) had her heart set on a training program that would allow her to become a 'disease detective'. After all, she describes herself as the "weird kid" who would do school projects on anthrax and Ebola. The two-year course in investigating disease outbreaks at the US-based Centers for Disease Control (CDC) — known as the Epidemic Intelligence Service — would intake a select group of researchers annually, and it had been a career dream of Isabelle's to advance her work in public health. While it may have been a "long shot", the...