It's been a busy week--so busy I didn't have time to update my blog yesterday. Well, most of that particular business was from taking two hours to try and get my computer back (as far as I know they haven't run any diagnostics, and they've had it for nearly two weeks) and finding them closed. Coupled with the fact that I have an anatomy exam next week (which is basically two exams since it's a practical and a written), I didn't even have time to cook a proper dinner, much less tell y'all about my life. Hopefully I'll be able to make my pasta bake tonight...I've been wanting to all week!
As I mentioned last week, my family came to see me last Saturday. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 was REALLY fun! It was full of food puns and The Power of Friendship and I really enjoyed it. It was also really nice just to watch things with other people...I used to do that all the time in undergrad, but I haven't really got people to watch with here. I miss it. Since they didn't come until evening, I also spent the morning at the work day with Raptor Rehab. I helped with physical exams on a red-tailed hawk and on Professor, the owl I was also feeding. He was definitely much better than BAMF about climbing on my fist, even if sometimes by the third time or so he would get sick of it and try to just squeeze my hand and not put the other foot up. I also trimmed an owl's talons (I think it was BAMF? Don't really remember) and apparently I was pretty good at it. :) There was a potential hurricane in the area, so we moved them inside to the exotics part of the teaching hospital, but the hurricane never came through.
This week's tests were physio and diagnostic imaging. I'll be happy with my grade as long as we can get one question thrown out, which we definitely should because there were no correct answer options. I rocked everything that wasn't therio...luckily, there's no more therio in our physio class or on the next test! Diagnostic imaging wasn't too bad; our grades just went up today and I did well. We're all getting pretty sick of the constant tests thing, but we're halfway through the semester now. And in a couple weeks (after anatomy and the physio final), we actually have a week with no tests! Okay, it's followed by two tests in a week, but I don't have to think about that yet. I'm really looking forward to the break.
Besides the exam, I also had my diagnostic imaging lab this week. It's split up alphabetically so there are about 6 groups spread throughout the semester. I was in the second group, so my lab was the second hour on the first lab day. I honestly didn't get too much out of it. Part of that is because I already saw the x-ray room with the club tour, plus I could largely visualize the concepts we discussed in class from working with an x-ray machine in a clinic for vet experience. For the other part of the lab, it was just radiographic anatomy, which we've had in anatomy class alongside our studies of the skeleton (sidenote: the spine is on our exam, and I've decided to call the vertebral column from my bone box Leviathan. It's a Skullgirls refrence). We didn't even get to hang up the radiographs ourselves, despite how much emphasis they put on the proper orientation. The groups were small enough that we could have had a little personalized attention, like in anatomy lab, if we'd only had a little more time. Instead it was mainly just an opportunity to ask questions. At least I got the 10 points for showing up?
I'm still not sure what I want to do over the summer. Really I should have already contacted a teacher if I want to do Summer Scholars here, but I haven't. Kind of worried I might have already missed the boat, even though the deadline isn't until February. I did get an email about a NASA internship that looks really cool, and I think I'd really like to do it, but I don't know all the details yet; it's a lot harder to follow the links when I don't have my computer. I might be able to stay with family in Houston, so that should work nicely, but I'm sure that's super competetive as well.
I've officially joined farm animal club, and I'm thinking about joining integrative medicine club as well. Our anatomy professor gave a talk on Thursday about her acupuncture certification, and apparently there's a way to work it into clinics so that you get the certificate when you graduate. I'm definitely thinking about doing that; I don't see any downside to having more skills in treating animals.
We also had a VBMA meeting yesterday about "marketing yourself" which turned out to really be more about marketing your veterinary clinic on the web. I actually took a bunch of notes on my phone...parts of it were about how to trick Google so your result is one of the top, but she also talked about marketing to pet owners rather than other vets (aka don't have a giant unavoidable picture of heartworms on your home page). I'm really glad I'm in VBMA because I really like learning about the non-medical part of veterinary medicine, too. Of course, the free food at their meetings helps too. ;)
On the medical side though, I actually went with several of my classmates to New Orleans for the Dream Clinic, to "practice practicing medicine." The Dream Clinic is a free clinic in downtown New Orleans--they have human medicine, dentistry, and veterinary services. It's run under a couple of tents in the parking lot of an abandoned church, and a good number of people came. Definitely over 40...I think we only had about 15 vaccines left from the 70 or 80 we started with. For the most part it's physical exam, rabies and 7-in-one vaccines, and deworming from us; then they get sent home with flea and heartworm preventatives. All of us students who came are first years (apparently I'm part of a particularly active class!), and there were about a dozen of us. It was largely us as the "doctors" giving the physical exams, with the husband-and-wife team in charge floating around to diagnose anything abnormal and prescribe medications. There was also a vet from the community, whom I was working with. I thought it would be a good way to ease into it, but mostly it meant that I was relegated to tech work running for vaccines, drawing up dewormer, and holding dogs. Next time I'll try to work with a student who's been a couple of times instead. I know one of my classmates who had a stethoscope from his old clinic used it plenty of times. At least I got to see some really cute puppies, including a litter of five pit bull puppies and an adorable little Catahoula. I definitely want to do this more often...maybe not next month but definitely in the spring semester, every time I can.
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