Hi there; Birdie here!
I'm a little behind on blogging, since I'm now on my third rotation and just blogging about my second. I'll hopefully get a post up about this rotation later this week, but for now I'm going to write about my second two week block--vacation.
After my awesome oncology block, I had two weeks off--and no, I didn't use it to get a head start on VetPrep. I did a lot of reading, played some video games (especially with my little brother), but the reason I had this block as vacation is so I could travel. On March 5, I left for "Fabulous" Las Vegas. I was attending to recieve a leadership award, and part of the award was travel to the conference, including a stay at the Excalibur hotel. When I was scheduling my rotations (and, honestly, until about a week before the conference) I didn't know how much of the conference I needed to attend as an award recipient (it turned out to only be the first couple of days), and the whole 5-day conference was more than we're allowed to miss for any rotation.
Western Veterinary Conference is huge! When we first got access to the program, there were easily three speakers I was interested in at almost any time. Having gone to SAVMA symposium, though, I was used to that. What I wasn't expecting was the sheer size of it: three floors of the Mandalay Bay convention center, and an exhibit hall that just. kept. going. What first struck me when I walked in to the convention center (after far too long of wandering around and winding up at the shipping docks instead of the actual entrance, but that's another story...Google Maps does not know how to walk around Vegas) was that every advertisement on any wall or display was some veterinary product. That was when I knew that for 5 days, we veterinarians owned this place.
The exhibit hall was much bigger and fancier than at SAVMA--I guess when you're marketing to the people who can buy it on a large scale Right Now, you can pull out all the stops. There were a lot of companies offering surgical lights or kennels or other items distinctly for those in practice, but the same sorts of booths as at SAVMA were there too--just bigger. At least two different booths had espresso you could order (Hill's also had not-coffee; the hot chocolate with hazelnut was amazing and I wish I'd found it before the last day), and the "Gard Yard" (for NexGard) had a bucking flea you could ride, as well as T-shirts screen printed just for you in one of four designs. Some of the places saved their free backpacks or pillow pets for veterinarians, or even for those who made purchasing decisions for the practice. But I still wound up with a whole backpack (won in a plinko game from NutraMax) filled entirely with swag, including three free textbooks--one on nutrition, one on derm, and one differential guide. The huge hall was best traversed with another student, at least at first, when it felt like no one would want to talk to me since I'm still in school. But overall, it was definitely a great and memorable part of the conference.
Of course, the conference was way more than checking out new products and getting free swag in the exhibit hall. Being part of the small group of award winners who did so many things together, I got to know students at different vet schools and see some friends from other things I've gone to like VLE or the Fly-in. Several of us joiners who go around applying for things wind up attending a lot of the same things together. On Sunday night, we had a dinner meet-and-greet, and then several of us attended the Brian Regan show free at the conference. I've seen Brian Regan before, and some of his bits I could probably quote by heart, but he had some new stuff too and I enjoyed it. Plus, now the friends who went with me understand why I intentionally say "take luck" or refer to more than one box as "boxen." The next morning, after breakfast and introductions (in the form of introducing partners we'd been paired with the night before), we took a bus to the Oquendo Center, the hands on learning center WVC built. That place is awesome--we saw an ultrasound lab in progress, a rabbit anesthesia class with cadavers and live rabbits to intubate, the large animal area, and a surgery suite with rows of tables for vets to practice fracture repairs or other surgeries. They don't really offer anything for students (although there is a program for vet techs), but they do have a sort of introductory surgery basics class that I might be interested in taking when I start out. It's supposed to be an intensive weekend or so where you can get really comfortable and confident in surgery; I'm not sure how much surgery experience I'm going to get in clinics, but I'll definitely keep it in mind. On Tuesday, awards were presented at yet another breakfast and we took pictures--including one with the VLE 2014 alums who had won the award for our respective schools--there were a good number of us! Besides these award-recipient things, I also went to several lectures (maybe a dozen overall) on everything from service dogs to parvovirus to FLUTD to practice ownership.
Meeting people was one of the best parts of the conference. I got to hang out with friends from VLE and make new friends from other schools who recieved the same award. Some of us got drinks together and even went to the aquarium (rather small, but pretty cool--especially the "monsters of the deep" exhibit with preserved, dissected specimens from an eel to a penguin) on one of the last days. At a DVM students reception (which was kind of sparsely attended, though I found a good group to hang out with), I met a student from Australia who had come over with her dad, who is a veterinarian. I also networked with people in the exhibit hall. A leader at the company who made some of the equipment my summer research used has ties to Wisconsin and is helping me look for places to find an externship in the area.
I also attended the Lead with Your Strengths workshop with a Gallup strengths coach. It cost a bit extra (and will cost more when I get around to unlocking my full results...not thrilled about that) but I'm really glad I went. At first, it did not meet my expectations at all. When I took the quiz, I was expecting the one I had taken last year at authentichappiness.org, but this one was completely different. Instead of agreeing or disagreeing with positive statements, the test makes you choose between two statements that, often, aren't actually opposed at all. I got very annoyed with it, to be honest. It also has a time limit, theoreticaly, of 20 seconds per question...but I never hit that; I guess I read too fast. There were only 4 of us in the workshop, including me and Betsy Charles--I had really expected more. I learned a lot from it, but I struggled hard against it at the beginning. Part of it was because it didn't match my expectations at all, and part was because the "strengths" were not well defined (my "top 3" seem like facets of one thing, to me) and unlike at least two of the other three participants I never read the book or heard of these concepts before. It's an interesting concept, and I'd like to learn more about it. I'll have to actually read the book sometime. But I do feel like I got something out of our conversations, even if I still have a lot more to learn about this complicated system.
And the conference wasn't all I did in Vegas, either. I saw four different shows, besides Brian Regan. Le Reve (which I cannot pronounce right, the Canadian students assured me, but neither did the announcer at the show, so that's ok) at the Wynn was fantastic. It's similar to Cirque de Soleil but not the same company, and it takes place in a huge water stage. Different solid parts of the stage come up at different times, from the tree rising up for performers to dive off of to the multi-tiered fountain for the finale. There were acrobats, too, dropping in from high in the ceiling on silks or rings or swings. I'm so glad I got to see it. Apparently they change the show every six months, according to the hostess at dinner. You can't even see everything in one show just by seeing it once! For the rest, my dad joined me, meeting a friend of his in Vegas. He did the zipline downtown (I did not, becuase after making me leave and come back with a string for my glasses that didn't seem very secure anyway, they didn't have anywhere for me to leave my things--I don't know why they don't have lockers, they could make money off of that), though not the one where you go flat on your stomach. We had planned to do that one, but the time conflicted with our show, so we gave the tickets to a couple (who were just married...again! according to their T-shirts) as they went in to buy tickets. We saw two comedy magicians (Mac King and Adam London) and the musical Rock of Ages (which is a bit awkward to see with your dad, considering the major stripper subplot--not that you would know that from anything on their advertisements). I did my best to enjoy it anyway, and it was very well done, but...awkward. Although dinner that night, the buffet at the Rio, was easily the best meal of the trip.
So there you have it--definitely worth a post in itself, I'd say. Next time, I'll tell you about what it's like to work emergency for two weeks.
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