Ungulates and Ultrasounds

Hi there; Birdie here!

I've finished my first full 4-week block, my equine rotation. Even though it's a whole block, it's kind of split into two half blocks. There's two surgery services and a medicine service, and the students on the rotation switch services after the first two weeks. My rotation had 11 students, and there's only one medicine service, so some of us didn't get to do medicine. I think one of the surgery services pretty much kept the same students the whole block. I did a surgery service first and medicine second.

The surgery service was really busy when I was on it. We had a few chronic cases that stayed from the first few days on block until we switched services (some even all through the block). We learned a lot about bandage changes and the GameReady, which ices and compresses a leg to bring down swelling. I got to scrub in on a laparoscopic orchiectomy on a cryptorchid stallion who turned out to be monorchid, which was really interesting. One night we stayed until 11:30 at night to recover a horse from a second colic surgery and then lavage his abdomen. We also had a bunch of lameness exams, which I really enjoyed and felt like I learned a lot from. I'm not very confident about watching for lameness, so it was run when I got it right. For one of my cases, I got to do a nerve block and then successfully saw the lameness switch to the other leg when the block worked.

On surgery service, everyone can go in to watch the surgery (any students can go in and watch, really, as long as they wear caps and masks) and the student on the case scrubs in to the surgery and then writes the surgery report afterward. They were more lenient about paperwork in equine than small animal. We still had to write SOAPs every day, discharge summaries, and surgery reports, but it wasn't nearly as stringent as our junior surgery lab reports. Also they didn't look at our paperwork immediately. Like, I know I missed a lot and probably got some things wrong in the report for my cryptorchid, but I never heard anything about it.

For emergencies throughout the block, each of us on the block took 4 shifts as primary on call and 4 shifts as secondary. Some people got called in every time they were on call. I got called in only a couple of times. Once, we had two colics come in at once, and I was helping to do the workups on both of them until the secondary student got there. Another time, there were almost 3 emergencies, but none of them actually ended up coming in.

The medicine service was really slow this block, but I still got a couple of cases when I was on for the second half of the block. It seems like most of what we did was foals with diarrhea, and colics.  A lot of colics from emergencies got transferred to medicine (my emergency colic ended up transferring to medicine the same day I did, so I just kept that case). Both of my colics had gastric ulcers, which we diagnosed on gastroscopy. We did a bunch of gastroscopies and a couple guttural pouches, but didn't diagnose any laryngeal paralysis, unlike my previous equine hospital experience. Medicine was much bigger on rounding than surgery. This was partially because it was so slow, so we had topic rounds on endocrine diseases or fluid calculations. But it was also just because they wanted to talk about and plan what we were doing a lot more and keep everyone on the same page. If they actually kept us informed, that would have been great. Unfortunately most days we just sat around with no clear idea what was going on--and then at 4:30 they wanted us to round instead of going home.

I got to practice a bunch of skills on this rotation, too. I put in jugular catheters several times. For one of my foal cases, I helped put in a long over the wire catheter. I had some trouble with that one--it's hard to keep the long pieces sterile, especially when you don't really know what you're doing. I did an ultrasound on that foal, too. We looked for broken ribs (ultrasound is a better diagnostic than x-rays in foals--it's more sensitive, and you can see which side it's on and also the effect on surrounding soft tissues) and scanned the umbilical cord. I'm still proud of how good the images I got were--one of the house officers said my pictures were "textbook"! One particularly slow day, we got out some of the teaching horses to practice procedures. I did an over the wire catheter myself since I'd messed up the first time and wanted to do better. I still broke sterility, but apparently I did an impressive job of suturing it in with a little smooth backhand action.

One of the toughest things about this rotation was that we didn't really have any days off unless we happened to not have any cases over the weekend (which may have happened once). We were responsible not only for the 7am treatments but also 7pm treatments. We still got to leave before 7 most days (we could usually start evening treatments around 5), but on weekends that meant we had to come back in. Combine that with 7am treatments which (1) mean we never have a chance to sleep in and catch up on sleep and (2) sometimes went until 11:30 am to finish all the rechecks, bandage changes, etc., and it means no days off. It was tough, but not nearly as bad as I was expecting. I guess staying at school for about 12 hours doesn't feel as bad as it sounds. Especially when you're actually doing stuff and learning.

The clinicians were great teachers on this rotation, and I learned a lot. Some of the house officers were a lot better about teaching us than others were. Overall, it was a tough rotation, and I was glad for it to be over. But it wasn't as bad as I expected. I learned a lot, and some things were even pretty fun!

Despite how much time it took up, I still managed to make a riding lesson every week. In fact, the first weekend I even got to ride in a schooling show! I was on Baby, and I got to do the medal class for the first time. I love the medal class, it was so much fun! The medal class is a more complicated course with lots of rollbacks. Those tough, tight turns are my favorite. I did my course early in the order, but I didn't untack when I was done because I wanted to ride into the ring for the ribbons. And it's a good thing I didn't, because they called 6 of us (including me) back into the ring to "test the riders" with a short portion of the course ending in a halt. My horse didn't want to get going again--she thought she was done! I thought I might get marked down for how much I had to fight her to get her going again. But I put it out of my mind (they're testing the riders, not the horses, I told myself) and did a great job over the jumps. And then I ended up winning the medal class! I was totally not expecting it, but it was a great bonus to how much fun it was.

Now I'm starting (small animal) surgery rotation, so that'll be my next post. It's not a break at all--there's no way I can make riding lessons this block. But if I get through it, it's summer! In clinics, we don't really get summer off; it just worked out that between family vacation, the Live Oak Bank summer program, and when an externship happened to fall I'm about to spend 3 months away from school. At least, if I get through surgery first!

Back to the Classroom

Hi there; Birdie here!

I know, I'm pretty late with this post. I'm writing about the block that finished two and a half weeks ago; I'm on Equine now, which is super busy...but that's a whole different story.

Last block I was in 5010s--those are our classroom electives (the class number for every single one of them is 5010, so we say that to distinguish it from actual rotation electives). Because of who I am as a person, I was in every single class for this particular two-week block: "Advanced Business Management", ultrasound, dentistry, and feline. That's enough credits in one half block that I got an extra half block of vacation, plus one more credit than I actually need because I just want to learn everything. ANYWAY.

I'm putting "Advanced Business Management" in quotations because there didn't seem to be anything particularly advanced about it. We had a core business class in the fall, and this hardly seemed to build on anything. The first couple of days were leadership/communication type things, and we also did some stuff on financial planning/planning for retirement, practice software, making a business plan, etc. Every single one of them was a lecture, which I feel was not the best use of that class. It's an elective, so it's smaller than the whole third year class. You could totally do more experiential learning, small group activities--at least discussion! But instead it was two hours of class every day for two weeks. I don't regret taking it, but I'm not sure how much I actually learned from it, and I really think the class could have been done better.

Ultrasound was mostly lecture, but we also had a lab each week. We learned about theory, about different types of artifacts, and about normal/abnormal by organ/system. Then in lab we got to try finding the structures. I feel like I did a fair job doing a basic exam (though no, I didn't find any adrenals this time). We also got to practice doing fine needle aspirates and biopsy sampling guided by the ultrasound. I enjoyed this class, especially on lab days. Hopefully it helps me be a step ahead when I do the ultrasound rotation a year from now! And in general--ultrasound is something I'm really interested in, and something I'm trying to use as a selling point when I look for jobs.

Dentistry was just two days, but it was all day. The first day we were in lecture. Some of it was review from what we got in Medicine (or possibly another course, but I think it was Medicine), but it wasn't just a re-hash and they sometimes asked questions, like expecting us to remember. There were also two clinicians teaching it together, which was more entertaining and I think more informative, since they could fill in each others' gaps and bring in their own experiences. The main message of their class was "Even if you aren't a specialist, you can do a lot yourself" (meanwhile, my business class had a lecture on why you should specialize and how it's unethical to advertise yourself as a dentist if you aren't boarded). So then the next day we proved it in lab. It wasn't really all day, just all morning. We learned to pull canine teeth and cheek teeth (I also made sure to ask about incisors), and we learned about nerve blocks and fixing broken jaws and correcting malalignment of the canines. Mostly, it takes high speed dental equipment. I'm really glad I got to practice that, and they were super helpful in answering our questions and making sure we did things right.

The feline elective was basically exactly the same as the one I did second year--each of us brought in a case and we discussed our problems, differentials, and treatment plan. There were a dozen or so of us in the class, so not all of us actually presented (I didn't, for one). It was a pretty good class, and I definitely learned from it. Particularly since I don't have my medicine rotation before NAVLE, it's nice to have some case-based learning about feline diseases.

Despite having a relatively easy block with electives, I still haven't looked up all the topics I'd meant to study for oncology and emergency rotations. And now I'm even more behind with equine because of how long the days are--but again, that's another story. You'll have to wait a week or so for that one (at least--I just happened to get out unusually early today). ;)

Emergency!

Hi there; Birdie here!

So the thing I forgot about having my emergency rotation the last couple of weeks is that it meant I was on emergency over Easter weekend. I mean, when I got the schedule I knew Friday was a holiday, but I was not prepared for Saturday...but that's getting ahead of myself.

Emergency works like most other rotations: when a student gets called for a case, we go up and get the history. Then we bring the animal back, do our physical, let the clinician do a quick physical, and figure out what we're doing next. Unlike oncology and other rotations, there is never any idea what the case will be the day before, obviously. Also unlike other rotations (except possibly medicine), we get critical patients that get taken back to ICU by one student while another student takes the history. And of course, on emergency we definitely don't get weekends off. But we do have two days off each week, which are possibly better than weekends off on other rotations because you actually don't need to come in, even to take care of a patient in the hospital or to take transfers. Also, most days don't start work until 4:30pm, so that meant I had days to do things. I definitely used one of those days to go to the library. Our rotation was big enough that one student was on days during the week. Then on weekends, roughly half of us were on days (8am-5:30pm) and the other half on nights (4:30pm to midnight). The end times were largely theoretical; even once we stopped taking cases, we still had to write up discharge summaries, which could take hours. There are no rounds in emergency, either. The caseload is majorly variable; some days we had basically nothing and some days the only reason I had time to eat was because someone brought food into the treatment room and I could snack while working on paperwork for my cases.

I never personally dealt with the really critical cases. We had two dogs hit by cars during my shifts, and for both of them I ended up getting the case that came in right before that, so I had to sit with that patient and try to do my physical alone while everyone else worked to stabilize the critical patient. I did have a possible GDV that I sent back to ICU (it turned out to be barely bloated) and a snakebite case that I sent back in case it needed immediate stabilization--both of which I was the history-taker for, and neither of which needed much in the way of stabilization anyway.

I really do love working with the clients. I'd always thought I would miss that if I decide to specialize, but now that I've actually done it it's not just a theoretical liking. We had one patient, a cat, hospitalized for the entire Easter weekend, where I made friends with the owner. I happened to be on days that entire weekend as well as the one who admitted the cat, so I stayed involved in that case. One day I stayed late so that the owner could visit. She told me that I really helped calm her and made a good impression of our hospital (she'd never been here before), so that makes me feel good about myself. At least I can actually do the client communication part of my job, and someone thinks I'm good at it.

Other parts, I'm not as good at. It was really only my second rotation at school, but I still felt overwhelmed by how much I didn't know, especially when it was really busy. One day I forgot to update my discharge at the end of the day, which was "inappropriate"--and got called as such. When we did a neuro exam,  the clinician explicitly did not ask which nerves each reflex tests--but I barely remembered what reflexes I was supposed to test, anyway. I also got snapped at for not knowing what to do when I cleaned Isolation (even after explicitly asking for help because I didn't know what I was doing--and when I later got told that it isn't even my job, anyway). And that's not even mentioning all the diagnoses I didn't get and drugs I didn't have dosages for. I'm recording this in the hopes of progress--I'm not competent yet, but I will be. I'm still learning.

Saturday was the craziest of all. There was one other day I was on cases for almost as much time, but only on the day before Easter did I personally have four different cases (okay, technically two of them were the same suspected toxicity, from the same owner) and my two classmates on with me have at least three each. And that's not even mentioning how many phone calls we kept fielding--everything from "my dog ate chocolate" to a scratch on an eye to the snakebite case that immediately came in. Luckily, some of the Medicine people stayed after taking transfers to help us with the huge influx of cases (it was a medicine student who did the physical on my snakebite dog). Other than anyone who stayed out of the goodness of their hearts, we only had two clinicians and three students. We were all running around like crazy dealing with something like a dozen cases all coming in at once, plus running more diagnostics on hospitalized patients. In the end, we got through it--but it was hugely stressful, with a lot happening all at once and me feeling like I had no clue how to help. And after the next shift started (that was a day shift, so the night students took over), we still had to write discharges. One of my classmates didn't leave his "day" shift until 9pm because he had to keep taking the phone calls no one else was available foor. That was definitely a defining moment for my decision that I do NOT want to do emergency work for my job.

I've kept up with my horseback riding, more or less. Off days on mergency gave me time to do that. Last week we did something really fun--a catch rider lesson. After warming up and riding a course of jumps once, we switched horses and rode it on each of the other four horses in the lesson. We stayed late (theoretically because no one had to go to school the next day, on Good Friday--I had to be at work at 8am, but I just rolled with it anyway) but it was totally worth it. I hope I get to play that game again. This week, the indoor arena had really hard footing since the tractor to drag it was broken, so we couldn't do much jumping. Instead, I got to learn a little about turns on the forehand and turns on the hind. Unfortunately, the horse I was on (Baby) is not very good at those turns. It was especially hard from a halt; she didn't want to move again! We did a fair approximation, though. I'd like to try again sometime. My instructor told me to remind her and I'll be able to try again on a horse who's better trained to it.

I'm so glad I'm done with emergency. I'm back in the classroom now for two weeks of electives--but that's a topic for another blog. After that I've got two rotations I've heard are tough (equine and surgery)--I'll try to record those as well, but at this point I have no idea what kind of time I'll have so I'm guessing none. Once I get through those, though, it'll be summer and I'll be away from school for three months on a combination of vacation and externships (slash "special topics," which is what school is calling the Live Oak Bank externship since it's not at a private practice). That's what I'm looking forward to most right now, and about as far into the future as I can think at this point.

Two rotations down...over a dozen to go.

When the Second Thing You Do on Clinics is...Vacation

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.

White Coats and New Beginnings--Clinics!

Hi there; Birdie here!

I haven't blogged since third year started, but I'm hoping to get back into it because now I have really interesting things to talk about--I started clinics this Monday! LSU starts clinics in spring of third year (and I'm still not sure whether I should be introducing myself as a fourth year student now that I'm Phase II). For about a month, we took 3 classes (population, ethics/jurisprudence, and infectious disease). No final grades back yet (except for ethics, which was practically a participation grade--just a few online quizzes and analysis of two cases), which is kind of annoying, but I don't doubt I passed so it's fine. We had our white coat ceremony on Feb 5th, and then we had a week off (which I spent half in the Bahamas and half visiting family in Houston and 0% studying like I'd planned to). So far I'm still not sure that I actually know how to do anything, but I seem to have retained some stuff from classes and I'm learning more all the time. Clinics are pretty awesome, and so much better than being in the classroom.

My first block is oncology for two weeks--for those of you who aren't sure, that means cancer. Whenever I tell anyone that's what I'm on first, the inevitable reaction is how it must be sad and depressing. And there has been that component--yesterday was a tough one, with a cardiac hemangiosarcoma that was euthanized. The owners were so sweet about it; they thanked me for my part in working with him, even though I really don't feel like I deserved it given how I didn't actually do much for him. And I'm not entirely sure my case Monday might not be another euthanasia. But my case yesterday was the only one all week we couldn't do anything for. Learning about cancer is really interesting, and we have really cool options for treatment. The clinicians are wonderful. Our usual oncologist isn't on clinics this block, but we have a locum from Auburn and some interns/residents. The third year resident is taking most of the cases, and she's great to work with.

We never get grilled in case rounds about details of the diseases or treatments we're working with (although I expect that will be different on other rotations, especially medicine), but the clinicians are really good about pulling you in on a doctor level. They ask about what do you want to do next on this case, or what do you think of this bloodwork finding or this clinical sign, or does this plan make sense to you based on what you know about this disease. The part that most surprised me--and makes me feel most like a real doctor when I get it right--is when they ask about medications. A couple of my patients have needed to be sedated for ultrasound, and I was expected to come up with a protocol. And when our patients have non-cancer problems (a corneal abrasion, neck pain), we're asked to come up with medications for those too. They're really chill about it, though--I'm never afraid to try and come up with something, or to say when I don't know. It helps that everyone knows it's our first block (4 of the 5 students on oncology this block are 2017ers); I'm learning, I don't have to know 100% of everything right now. My next block might be a little harder in that regard, but hopefully I do learn enough to keep up with it.

The way this rotation works is that we start each morning with case rounds, introducing everyone to our patients for the day. Then we go for topic rounds, which is kind of a lecture but mostly a conversation about whatever topic is selected for that day--radiation or chemo safety or a specific tumor type or whatever. That takes about an hour, and then we start seeing our cases. If they aren't already here, the students are the ones who go out and greet them and take a history before bringing the pet back to our area. We do a physical exam (although I should be better at making sure I get a good PE--it's hard sometimes with a painful dog who growls when you touch him, or the patient in ICU that I'm scared to mess with), and so does the clinician on the case. We as students do a lot of filling out paperwork (request forms for everything--a lot of bloodwork and imaging, whatever drugs we need, etc.) and calling clients, and we go in the exam room whenever the clinician goes to talk to the clients. We also have to write up discharge summaries for our cases. I actually wrote my first one yesterday (not the hemangiosarcoma, my other case--one of our oncology patients who presented on emergency, and turned out to have hepatic lipidosis) since throughout the week I've been too busy with my other cases and then it needs to be quickly written when the owner is coming, so the clinician takes it. I usually have at least two cases, although on Tuesday neither of my cases showed up, some days some people have had three or four cases, and sometimes I pick up another case that wasn't expected but shows up later in the day (like that hepatic lipidosis cat).

Some highlights from this rotation so far: I felt lymph nodes on a dog with lymphoma--you can definitely feel them when they're that big! I've watched a couple of ultrasounds and looked at a CT scan. And one day, a classmate and I had a little competition. The only thing we knew about the case coming in was that it had a mass on its leg. We competed for the best diagnostic plan, earning points throughout the day for things like picking the correct top differential diagnosis, noticing a swollen lymph node, knowing the right medication to give. In the end, I won (I think by only one point--it was close), with the prize being the loser buying the winner a latte. That was such a fun day--and our clinician even said that we were practically doctors handling the case ourselves! Those are the best moments, when you feel like a real doctor. Clinics are pretty awesome.

Today was open house, and for the first time, I didn't work it at all. Since we started clinics, we're no longer in charge of (or really even in) any clubs, so I didn't have to--and after working all day the past two years, I'm happy not to have to. We were offered extra credit in Infectious Disease for working (and that's why it's annoying not to have our grades back yet), but it was worth it not to have to come in. Hopefully I don't miss that extra credit when grades do come out! I also bought my NAVLE prep materials today. I wasn't planning to start until maybe May...but the sales don't come around again until the end of May, and I'd wanted to start at the beginning of the month. So I may or may not get some use out of it in the meantime. I chose to buy VetPrep over Zuku. I like the company for Zuku better: their questions-of-the-day have little cartoons at the bottom, they seem more personable and very willing to help students, and they were the only ones who came to talk to our class. But they place a big focus on visual learning, and my first instinct when I see a picture on a textbook-type page is to ignore it and just be glad it's not as much to read. Plus some older posts (which, Zuku is newer and has been adding more and more every year, so they may not be totally accurate) seemed to suggest that VetPrep was better, at least a few years ago. My best friend bought Zuku, though (which is absolutely right for her, she's such a visual learner), so if I made the wrong decision I expect I'll know about it. I don't think it really matters that much, though, which service you use; people pass with both of them.

Welcome to Third Year!

Hi there; Birdie here!

Hello, readers, if I still have any readers left after several months of hiatus (or if I had any in the first place)! I am now one week into my third year of vet school, with only one semester + one month to go until I start clinics, which is both awesome and scary. I've already started looking for externships, and have one penciled in, but two other places I've talked to won't have dates for 2016 until September, so I have to wait a little while. For all of my classmates who didn't seek out the schedule and rules about externships during the summer, we're having our first meeting about phase II scheduling on Tuesday. I'm not really sure when we have to turn in our rankings for what rotations we want when...further updates as events warrant.

So far we've started Business Management, Equine, Critical Care, Surgery & Anesthesia (as in, the one where we actually do surgery), Clinical Skills lab, and small animal Medicine. Tomorrow we add Ophthalmology, too. And that's just in the first two weeks! I really value the business class, and I think what we're learning is important, but I don't care for the person teaching it or the way they present the material. I did rather enjoy putting my bright-orange-with-bronze-tips nails blatantly on the desk in front of my classmates when he said to stick to natural colored or no nail polish and "save the red for date night." Unfortunately, I had to take off that nail polish (which I'd just put on btw) that night for surgery lab the next day. I had my very first surgery lab on Tuesday, which left very little time for preparation. I was absolutely terrified during the last hour of class on Monday when they explained the high standards of Surgery. It was nowhere near as bad as I expected, though. We had typed up our procedure, and we taped it to the cabinets so we could have a reference. And we had at least three different clinicians come and talk us through various parts of the procedure. We did very little of the abdominal exploratory that was nominally the goal of the lab, but we did spay our cadaver dog. My lab partners each did an ovary and I took care of the uterine body. I have a bet with one of my lab partners about whether our surgery report will be acceptable or unacceptable (the only two grades on that scale). I think it will be unacceptable because he'll want us to edit it so that we can know exactly how to do it right before the individual reports from  our live surgeries which are actually graded--but we'll see. We also had lab for Equine, but it wasn't anything exciting this week. Well, there was a live horse, which would be more exciting if I still didn't have riding lessons; but I did, the day before. We did learn how to tie several knots, though: a tail tie, bowline, clover hitch, and their version of a halter tie. Maybe later labs will be more exciting.

Our schedule is pretty weird this semester. We picked groups for surgery, which also apply for Equine lab and now for Clinical Skills (it originally wasn't, but that teacher changed it). The groups rotate such that on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, only some of us have class at given times (after the first 2 hours). Some days I don't have class after 10 am! I'm trying a new way of organizing my agenda this year to keep up with stuff especially in those blank spaces where I don't have class: basically as a weekly to-do list, color-coded for when things are due.

This was the first weekend of the school year, which means Homes for Hounds and the year's first Spay Day. On Friday, I went to the Christian Veterinary Fellowship ice cream social. We had an interesting talk about what "born again" means--I'm still not really sure what to make of it. I'm on their email list now, so I guess I'm part of CVF. I had most of the same team for Homes for Hounds this year, with one switch. I got there early, but went back home for last year's apron when I learned they didn't have enough this year for everyone. In the meantime, two of my group members worked on assembling the doghouse, which turned out to be defective--as I understand it, the holes on the front piece didn't line up right. And my third group member was stuck in huge storms as she drove back, so she got there about 2 hours late. All of which means we had a lot of disadvantages, and it didn't help that I 1) put rather a lot of detail into my drawing and 2) was the only one drawing (last year Brooke did one side). We finished most of the painting in the last 30 minutes, and we had to ignore some of the detail and just paint over it, but honestly I'm super proud that we finished at all. It didn't look as good as it could have, but we had an awesome concept and we got it across--and we actually had paint on all of it, which I consider a win!

The front of our Home for Hounds this year

It's Mardi Gras themed! Every dog on the float is a different breed, but they all had to be brown silhouettes because we ran out of time.

Note that the dogs on this float are wearing cat masks.

Spay Day today was INSANE. We did 237 cats--more than ever before, and the rescue group has agreed we won't do that many again! Luckily we also had a ton of people show up to help! I started out working anesthesia, as I typically do. But now I'm a third year--and I got to go to the neuter table! First I watched a classmate, who had been on the table longer, remove one testicle, and then I did the other one under her direction. I was offered to have someone observe and talk me through my next cat, but I spent 3 Sundays this summer at the shelter near the airport working on high volume neuters (and two spays, even! Well, like half a spay and 3/4 of a spay) where I learned very nearly the same procedure, so I felt like I had it under control. I felt really cool signing my name for the neuters and when first years helping out called me ma'am and assumed I know what I'm doing. Nine and a half of the cats that got neutered are thanks to me! I also got to meet a bunch of the first years, which was fun. But all in all, we didn't get out until 5...and we started at 8, so that's a long day!

Before I sign off, I just want to say a little about how I spent my summer. My research project was more complicated than we expected--my mentors kept adding comparisons, the machine we were supposed to be validating gave us trouble, and the part we expected to finish in 2 weeks still isn't done because unlike in the previous study (where they did finish in a few weeks), we needed a day between each dog to sterilize the only two transducers we had. Despite the fact that research is ongoing (and I might be able to help some in my blank spaces of no lab, depending on when they're working on it), I was able to spend a week at home before school started, which was nice. Before that, though, I presented my research on a poster at the summer scholars symposium. This year, it was at UC Davis; they apologized for the heat but it was perfect, nice weather to me, especially compared to Louisiana! The symposium itself wasn't much fun. I did like presenting my poster (and owning my landing, where I was the only poster presented at that time between two sets of stairs and a doorway). But other than that, they basically never stopped talking at us! I really disliked how on the first night, at a wine-and-appetizers thing set up like a meet-and-greet (you know, to meet all the people from other schools who are also presenting, as makes sense) they had several people talk at us for five minutes each while a lady went around SHHHH!ing anyone who dared to talk. I could see them giving a welcome talk, but it needed to take less than an hour and/or be set up as a thing where we listen to speakers instead of a thing where we meet the students from other schools.

The unofficial parts were great, though. Our LSU contingient hung out every night, whether at a picnic table near the not-meet-and-greet, in the common room of the dorm where we were staying, or out at the bars downtown. And one morning a handful of us skipped the first set of lectures to have a crepe brunch and walk around downtown Davis. We went to the farmers' market that happened to be across the street from our crepe place, stopped at a store to buy Davis T shirts (and I got olive oil for my mentors as a thank you gift--apparently Davis olive oil is a thing, or at least trying to be), and petted a bunch of dogs because so many people brought their dogs out. That was probably my favorite part of the trip. I wasn't sure during parts of the summer, especially when we were having so much trouble with everything, but I think I'm glad I did the research. Especially if I get a publication or two out of it! I'm also relieved that even though the project isn't finished, I don't have any real committment to work on it beyond the summer. I spent a lot of the summer worrying about how I'd manage to work on it while in school, and I'm glad to learn I didn't have to worry.

I'm still here

Hi there; Birdie here!

Today's post title is a reference to the song from Treasure Planet, which has been in my head for the past hour or so. It's also about what I'm feeling regarding vet school right now--however difficult it continues to be, I've gotten this far and I can get through it.

I've currently got a cookie sheet of snickerdoodles cooling, and I'm pretty sure it's the first time I've baked since the semester started. It's been a while! It helps that I've got people to share the baked goods with; I'm going to a potluck tonight (it's the first one of those in a while, too, huh?). We had our cardio final today, and it wasn't too bad. There were a few I wasn't sure on, but especially with how well I did on the first exam, I'm not too worried about it. The farm animal exam earlier this week is a different story--for that one, I'm hoping I guessed well and relying on the fact that it's less than half the points of our last exam, plus we still have 2 more exams to go. Luckily one of my classmates recorded the audio for the lectures I missed so I at least heard everything on this week's exams, but I still have two hours of lecture to catch up on in exotics (hopefully tonight). Then I can go on and miss two MORE days of class that I'll have to catch up on next week.

This week we also had our first surgery lab (my group went on Monday), and it was kind of incredibly intimidating. Now that I've caught up on the first two lectures for that class, I realize I was pretty unprepared for lab. I didn't wear my lab coat because I didn't see why we should when we're just changing into a gown--turns out it's because in real life we're supposed to wear a coat over our scrubs when we leave the surgery suite to reduce contamination. I also didn't get the memo about not wearing nail polish (the reason for that is because where it's chipped can create reservoirs for bacteria that you can't reach with your scrub) and blatantly had on nail polish. She didn't notice (probably because it was still the pink I had for DC), but I could easily have taken it off that morning and replaced it at night if I'd known. Still kicking myself for that. And that's not even mentioning the intimidation factor from the lab itself. Our first lab was all about how to create the sterile field: scrubbing, gowning and gloving, and draping the patient. The first thing we learned is that it's critical to fold your gown the right way when you wrap it so that you can put it on without contaminating anything but the inside. Then we learned both open (normal, with just your hands, like for a castration or something where you're not fully gowned) and closed (with your fingers tucked inside the cuffs of your gown the whole time) gloving, and how to scrub, and how to drape the patient. Said "patient" was actually a pillow with a xyphoid, pubis, and mammary chains drawn on it. It is surprisingly difficult to towel clamp drapes to a pillow. Like, incredibly difficult, actually. I managed to do everything, but it's so precise I'm really anxious about messing it up. At least I had the right type of cap. The caps in our packs are all guys' caps (which is a terrible idea on the bookstore's part--they don't give us a choice in buying them, but well over half of us can't use them), so some of the girls had to wear bouffant caps underneath. Luckily, I have a cute purple one with gold fleur de lis that I got from a feline club fundraiser. Over the summer I'm planning to find some cute material and make one or two more.

On Tuesday we had a small animal abdominal ultrasound for Diagnostic Imaging Club. It was pretty cool, except that we split the big group into two hour-long sessions--but as an officer, I had to stay the whole time. The dogs at my station both hours had some interesting issues: a thickened intestinal submucosa (potentially Heterobilharzia) in one and some bladder sediment in the other. I got to do the ultrasound myself once, naturally. I even got the right kidney on the first try, and found the duodenum! After we flipped the dog into left lateral, but still. But basically I spent most of the second hour hovering around, trying to be useful or learn something or at least not get in the way, and thinking about how I needed to be studying cardio. I'd definitely say it was a good wetlab. We had over 20 people (which had been supposed to be our limit), so I'm pretty happy with that!

Then on Wednesday, we did a mulitheaded microscope wetlab for path club. And by "we," I mean me and my li'l sib, because that's all who came. We had a few other people RSVP, but they couldn't make it for various reasons such as worrying about oncology, or forgetting about it. Couldn't get any of my classmates to come along, either. We looked at a few oncology cases, and I'm really proud of my little--it seemed like he learned a lot. It was mostly a review for me. We talked about the 5 round cell tumors (TVT, mast cell tumor, plasma cell tumor, histiocytoma, and lymphoma) and how to tell a sarcoma from a carcinoma--all of which I still remember from clin path and from going over again recently in oncology.

I also got to ride twice this week! There were lessons on Monday to make up for last week, when there were no Thursday or Friday lessons. I got to ride Sailor again, and we did some really cool stuff. My instructor put me on the lunge line and took away my reins and then had me canter without the reins. And, what I think is more impressive, after a few canter transitions she had us sitting trot with no reins. I'm really proud of how well I did at that. I remember when I was much younger and taking riding lessons, I mentioned to my instructor that I'd read that you should stop a horse with your seat first before using the reins and asked how to do that. Back then, they told me at my level I shouldn't be trying to do that. Well, now I can! And yesterday I rode Cajun, which I was really into. He was a lot better about not jumping huge, and I'm really proud of him. Well, but then the last jump in our line got moved for our last time through, and he still jumps really big when he gets a long spot. Still, I stayed with him! My position wasn't great, and I had a hard time keeping my heels down. It was a fun lesson though. My instructor thanked me a couple of times for riding him, but I had zero problem with it. I rather liked him yesterday, actually.

It helps that the book I just finished, Catch Rider, is all about a girl who wants to be able to ride any horse. I'm glad I read it on the week I had two lessons! I'm also pretty glad I read Snowman first. In Catch Rider, the main character goes to the Maclay finals at Madison Square Gardens, and I recognized that show site from the other book, so that was pretty cool. Before that, I finished Counting by 7s, which I liked a lot (my disliked characters got a lot of development, too), and The School for Good and Evil. I'm not real sure what to do with that one--I'm still not sure what happened at the ending, and I had some problems with it in general. There's two more, it's a trilogy, but I don't think I'll be picking up the others (at least in the near future). Since Terry Pratchett died, I decided that I need to re-read Going Postal immediately. I'm not even sure whether I'll count it for the challenge; it might be outside of that. It could probably count for funny book if I wanted it to. And at some point I need to finish Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (a book recommended by a friend, which is due back to the library before symposium unless I renew it) and read my Temple Grandin book (before Friday!). Oh, and study for oncology still. Right, studying too.

Tomorrow my family's coming up and we're going to the St. Patrick's Day parade. I'm pretty excited. I didn't get to any Mardi Gras parades this year, and I generally like St. Patrick's parades better because they throw a wider variety of stuff, including vegetables. One time I caught a pack of sour straws. Vegetables are much more useful than doubloons, too. I don't understand the kind of parades where people don't throw you anything--I'm a Louisiana girl at heart! Then on Sunday I'm running in the Great Rover Road Run 5k. I haven't actually been running in at least a month probably, so that's not really ideal. At least I have been riding so I should be sort of in shape? I just want to run the whole thing, I know I have zero chance of placing at all. But the entry fee goes to local shelters and the Dream Clinic, so it's a worthy cause. I'm glad I'm doing it, regardless of how unprepared I am.

Progress, I suppose

Hi there; Birdie here!

This week has been intense, but I can't really say it's over because I still need to catch up on lectures. First I went to DC, which--more on that later, but it was pretty stressful. Then I came back and didn't even have time to unpack because I had to study for my derm final makeup yesterday and my orthopedics final today. And then yesterday I found out that I got the Banfield summer job program--AND I got summer scholars. So in the midst of my exams I had to deal with that decision. I wound up deciding on summer scholars, since I don't have any research experience and unfortunately despite being in vet school I am still forever trying to make myself look good for the next application. Also my housing in Texas near the Banfield hospital fell through. I made the calls/emails to make that decision official this morning. And I've still got about 7 hours of lecture I hope to get through this weekend, which isn't counting the studying I need to do for next week's exams. Vet school's tough.

I'm actually pretty upset, because even though our classes are usually recorded (which I was counting on, being gone for two days) a certain farm animal clinician decided that not enough people were in class and didn't record. One of my classmates gave me her notes, but I'm not super comfortable with that; I'd rather hear it myself. I'm going to be missing his class for Symposium, too...this time I'll make sure to ask him beforehand in the hopes he won't decide not to record.

DC was...honestly, not what I was expecting. When it talked about "exposing veterinary students to the legislative process" I didn't know that meant making up lobbyists and setting up meetings for us with congress members' offices. The first night was good. We had a little reception to talk with other participants (one of my VLE groupmates was there!), and then a bunch of us went out to a place called the Beer (Bier?) Baron, where I got funnel cake burger sliders and another guy in the group got a chicken Parmesan donut. It was really cold! As we were walking back, everything was encased in ice. It was also raining earlier that day when I was walking to the hotel from the metro station. I actually took the metro station the wrong way for 2 stops, but I wound up on the same train I would have have to wait for, so I consider it a win--I waited in warm trains instead of on a cold platform.

The second day (first full day) was when the problem started. After several talks (we even had powerpoint printouts, just like vet school lectures), we had some mock meetings. The first couple of people who went up made me cringe. First, there was a large group that gave me so much secondhand embarrassment because no one seemed to know what to say and the person playing the senator had to keep feeding them lines. Then the next person was quite good, except that she kept saying things that were probably jokes but were just so very "no, don't do that!" So I figured, I have some idea what I'm doing, I'll go up. So I did. And I completely messed up which bill is which (we were presenting two bills: the Veterinary Medical Loan Repayment Program Enhancement Act and proposals for reauthorization of the Higher Education Act). I did my best to keep going anyway, and I probably wasn't the only one who would do that, but I felt horrible. It was not easy, it was not fun, and it did not make me feel good about messing up in front of actual congressmen (or their staff) the next day. No matter how much I wanted to bow out and fly home, though, I couldn't get out of it. I think they thought they needed me, although after my meetings I'm not sure why. I don't think I made any difference whatsoever: either they already supported our position or they brushed me off without listening. I met with one senator and two representatives--well, I met with their offices. Overall, I don't really know how to feel about it. It's a worthwhile experience and I'm sure it will look good on my resume, but I'm not sure it was a good experience for me.

The surgery wetlab a couple of weeks ago was a better experience, but that wasn't what I was expecting either. Basically, since literally none of us had sufficient background, we spent the wetlab learning to suture and do ligatures. At the end one of the groups got to do the neuter on their dog, but that's about it. Still, it might have actually been better, since literally everyone got to have hands-on personally instructed experience. I mean, the group that did the neuter, it was just 2 people who got to do it, I'm not sure what they would have done with the groups of 3-4 we had. And I feel like I learned a lot about spay/neuter procedures from the lecture beforehand. Either way, it's giving me a great leg up in our current surgery class. We had lectures on suture patterns and on instruments this week, and I have a good basis for that right now. We also had our first microscope wetlab for path club, and finally had a meeting and officer elections. I wasn't able to be there (it was Tuesday, while I was in DC), but I kept my vice-presidency.

At my riding lesson last week, I got to ride Sailor, my favorite! I think we did well together, and my instructor said I "managed him well. He gets a little excited." I also worked on my position, especially over jumps. The ring was super crowded, though, which I didn't appreciate. Naturally I didn't ride this week since I had so much in the way of tests (and summer decisions) to deal with, but actually there weren't lessons at the end of this weeks so I get to make it up on Monday and ride twice next week.

On the book front, I finished Tam Lin and was pretty disappointed in it. In the hopes of reading something I'd like better than my last few books, I got a short story collection called 21 Proms that has a John Green story in it (kind of hoping it would be like My True Love Gave to Me, a recent Christmas short story collection I loved). Well, the John Green story was alright, but I didn't like any of the others. I didn't relate to the characters, and some of them were just plain weird. On my flights/in DC, I read Top Dog by Jerry Jay Carroll for a book I own but hadn't read.  It's the best one I've read in a while, which isn't saying much. I liked the battle between good and evil, and some of the symbolism, but as a whole I didn't care for the narrator's tone and I wasn't entirely satisfied with the ending. Now I'm reading Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan. I've read nearly 200 pages just today (mostly just after I got home), so that's pretty good. I firmly dislike certain characters and situations, though. I need to find some better books, or I'll forget why I love reading (no I won't, I'll never do that).

I just got back from going to the gymnastics meet with A. It was senior night--the seniors' last meet. We got there a little late, after the first event had started. There were like three 10.0s this time--there weren't any last time! The star floor performer had her routine last, with music that included Stand Up and Get Crunk (a Saints pump-up song) and I'm pretty sure the LSU fight song too. She got a 10.0 for it, and she totally deserved it. Anyway, it was really fun and totally not catching up on lectures like I should have been doing.

Today I also started my feeding shift. The co-chair on duty right now is actually my li'l sib, and I caught him in the feed room when I went in before my test. He showed me and another feeder how to put on jesses (like a bird leash), and when I came back after the exam I jessed Lucy as well as feeding her. I have to say, it felt pretty cool to just walk around with a bird on my fist, nbd. I'm meeting him again in the morning to help stretch an owl that the wildlife hospital got in.

Next week I've got a farm animal exam (on less than 7 lectures this time, because that makes sense...I really don't like that class) and a cardio final, and the week after that it's Symposium. After this week, I really hope things get better (though I can't really see them getting worse, knock on wood).

Keep moving forward

Hi there; Birdie here!

I have now completed seven weeks of classes, but it feels like at least twice that. I was just home for Mardi Gras break as recently as Tuesday, but mostly that just served to throw me off...somehow I was still convinced I was coming back on Monday. I'm really angry about the orthopedics test I took this morning. It was at least half short answer, a lot of which involved questions with 4 blanks or "circle 5 things" or list three...yet none of them were worth more than two points. And the exam is worth 50 points overall, which means there's less of a cushion to get any wrong. I really don't know why they didn't just make it 100 points. And that's not even to mention how confusing some of the questions were...at least I found out that I did well in derm, and kept up my grade in urinary (despite how I felt walking out of the final).

I'm also stressing pretty hard about everything coming up. I'm leaving for Washington, D.C. next Sunday, but I still need to buy some more professional clothes and figure out when I'm taking the derm final, and that's in addition to the 20+ lecture exam in farm animal next Wednesday. It's not that it's hard material, but I've never done anything with farm animals so I know approximately none of it, and it's a TON of information. It would be a lot even if I didn't have to deal with derm, but I'm not sure whether I'm taking that final early (as in, Friday) or late (as in, right before the orthopedics exam). Missing exams in vet school is the worst. They're already crammed on top of each other, there's not really room for much more of it!

I did manage to make my riding lessons these past 2 Thursdays, at least. I've been riding a mare named Nora who used to be a Western pleasure horse and is pretty new to jumping. I like her, and she has lovely smooth gaits! Last week (after 2 weeks off), I had some trouble keeping her going. I did a lot better this week, though, especially in canter transitions (which we worked on a lot). We're also working on bending lines with her. This week we had a bending line where she had to change leads over the second jump (as well as get the correct lead over the first jump), and we weren't very good at it, largely because she doesn't know what she's doing. Honestly, I'm happy I got her to canter out every time I asked for it. Next week I'll do even better. I have to be pretty determined to get to my riding lessons now, though. Last week I studied pretty much every waking hour that I wasn't in class, including the day I took another exam, for my anesthesia final. Currently I'm holding on to the fact that there's only 6 weeks until spring break, and I'm traveling for part of 2 of them. Which means that at least a couple of the others I'll be scrambling to catch up, so I'm sure it will pass impossibly quickly and also take forever to do it--that's vet school.

Of course I'm also determined to keep up with my reading. I finished The Eighty-Dollar Champion and was actually pretty disappointed in it. It was exactly what I don't like about nonfiction: too much history, not enough story. It didn't really make me want to read my other horse books yet, so I haven't. I'm currently reading my year-book (that is, "A book published the year you were born"), but I paused in the middle to read Dragons Deal. I happened on it in Barnes & Noble the day before Mardi Gras, and it happened to be about a Mardi Gras krewe...so naturally I immediately read it in two days. I'm still hoping to read Animals in Translation before I hear Temple Grandin speak at symposium, but I'm not sure what it will count for in the challenge. Regardless, I'll probably read it on one of my plane rides...I have 3 of them before I want to have it read.

The alligator wetlab was pretty cool. I did hit the vein, but apparently "between scales" means between rows of scales, not between scales within a row (even though I'm pretty sure I was between scales, and I did get a flash of blood). I kind of failed at hitting the sinus behind the skull to give any drugs, though. Or rather, when I hit it the gator flailed and broke the needle or pulled it off the syringe or similar. Our alligator was 44 and a half inches long, I believe--three and a half feet. The necropsy was really interesting. Their testicles are kind of long structures almost at midline near the spine, and their kidneys are knobby little masses of tissue. Also, apparently reptiles have pigmented membranes, so fascia and other such connective tissue can just kind of be blue for no particular reason. So that's good to know. In addition to our wetlab, the gators had some specimens taken for a research project someone's working on. We had a really good turn out--26 people or so out of 30 spots, and everyone who couldn't make it gave us warning. Unfortunately our path club president wasn't feeling well and couldn't be there, and after all the work she put into planning it, too! But at least after all that work, it was a success.

We're working on planning our multihead microscope wetlabs for path club now: one histology, one cytology, and one correlation, with the first one next week. I'm also doing another wetlab tomorrow, this one with surgery club. Tomorrow I'll get to practice spays/neuters! We had the lunch meeting intro lecture yesterday, and the talk about ligation made my look at my notes from symposium last year since I went to a lecture on that topic. Unfortunately, my notes are kind of hard to follow. I don't know the suture patterns well enough to understand them, so the drawing doesn't really help unless I see it step by step. Still, maybe I'll look at it tomorrow so I at least have some idea how to do a circumferential and a three-clamp method. I'm pretty excited that I'll get to practice something I know I'm going to do in my career! I'm sure I'll learn a lot tomorrow about spay/neuter surgeries and also about surgery in general (we still haven't started our surgery class...despite being halfway through orthopedics).

Every time I look at my last blog post, it's cute how I think I will stop having so many things at once, ever. After spring break, maybe, when electives start. Until then, I'll just try to enjoy the mess of things I've got besides school.

Can I just take a minute to breathe?

Hi there; Birdie here!

It has been an extremely busy past two weeks. I've actually had to miss both my riding lessons because I've been kind of behind on studying for tests and needed my Thursday night to study for Friday exams. We had 2 tests each week. Last week's weren't bad (cardio and urinary), but this past week...systemic path was actually totally fine, but I wasn't nearly prepared enough the day before. And derm wasn't bad, but it was so short (only 40 questions) that it doesn't take many wrong answers to really bring your grade down. Which was kind of inappropriate for how much material we had on it. But before the tests, I also had a bunch of other things to deal with, starting with the fact that I spent all day at Open House last Saturday. I spent most of the day at the path club table. Actually, I was the one who went and picked out the specimens we got earlier last week, too. We had a heart with a low ventricular septal defect that I'd thought was a dog's but turned out to be a calf's (which made a lot more sense actually), the obligatory heart with heartworms, a primary pulmonary carcinoma, an end stage liver, and a polycystic kidney. The highlight was a cross section of a cow's head showing Lumpy Jaw (Actinomyces bovis). I originally was kind of resistant to including it, but I'm actually really glad we did. Then I finished the day at the Josh Project table, where the popcorn machine had already stopped working so I basically just cleaned up. Next year as a third year I won't be so involved in clubs (we'll have new officers and everything; third years are going into clinics in the spring), so hopefully I won't need to take more than one or two shifts. I really want to NOT work all day at open house...

And of course I also had to work on my summer applications! The proposal for Summer Scholars was due this Monday, and we were working on it until noon that day, so that also didn't leave much time for studying. Everything is all turned in now, though. Well, at least I hope Tulane has my whole application...I couldn't get anyone on the phone on Monday to confirm. I sent off the Johns Hopkins application, too. And I had my interview for Banfield last Wednesday. I think it went pretty well, probably better than last year. I got a little upset when I had to answer the question about when I got constructive criticism about how I handled a stressful situation, but I think my answer was at least coherent. I especially liked the question about which of my accomplishment I'm most proud of--I said winning NaNoWriMo for 5 years in a row including during vet school. I was a little thrown when they asked about a professional or educational goal someone else set for me, but I think I came up with a good answer about how I actually got my first job. Anyway, everything is in other peoples' hands. Now I just have to wait until early to mid-March and see what, if anything, I get.

Last blog entry I mentioned that I was going to Spay Day. That was a good experience--I did get to do some cat wrangling!--but I only got to set one endotracheal tube. I was kind of expecting more--there were only 4 of us who'd done the wetlab, and they tube every cat who's getting spayed,

I actually might have been able to make my riding lesson this week and still have time to study if it weren't for the Diagnostic Imaging Club wetlab that was also on Thursday. It actually meant I was still hanging out with horses--it was a distal limb ultrasound. I got fussed at for getting gel on the gel bottle and our teacher kept wandering off to help other groups so I didn't really figure out how to get the oblique view of the sesamoid bones, but I did get a nice picture of the flexor manica and was the first one to show where the palmar annular ligament inserts. Also this week I got to school extra early for a breakfast presentation with Banfield. It was about "I saw it on the internet..." in regards to pet nutrition. She had to rush a lot, though, and we still were late to class. Plus I think it was the same presentation she gave last year.

I'm still ahead on my reading challenge, with 13/52 books read, 11 prompts filled. I actually just finished book 13 this morning: Astonish Me, by Maggie Shipstead for "A book with bad reviews." I didn't really like any of the characters, and there was too much drugs and stuff, but it had some really interesting lines and I'm glad I read it. Don't think I'll read it again ever, though. I also read my book originally written in a different language: A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cosse. I got a little lost in the names and different writing style, especially at the beginning, and I didn't care over much for the ending, but I really liked the parts in the middle about the founding of their bookstore and what it was like. I'm about to start my "based on a true story," The Eighty-Dollar Champion. It's the one of 3 horse books I'm planning on reading, probably one after another, so I really don't want to miss my riding lesson this week! Also, I've lately gotten really into Taylor Swift. I got 1989 a while ago, recently after it came out, but last weekend I decided I absolutely needed to get one of her older CDs, Speak Now (I knew some of the songs because they show up on my Pandora). It was actually a bit of a mess and more time consuming than I would have liked, but I've been listening to it a lot since. I think I might order other ones online though. Less effort and time on my part.

Last night A and I went to the gymnastics meet vs. Georgia. It was really cool. The girls were very impressive, and we didn't even hit traffic on the way home. Plus it was free for me as a student! I'd be willing to go again. I missed the bachelor auction this year, since it was also last night, but I don't mind that at all. Tomorrow we're (finally) doing our joint path club/WAZEM (exotics club) alligator wetlab. We're going to be practicing some procedures and also necropsy. Then I should really have nothing on my plate but school. I'm looking forward to having Monday and Tuesday off next week for Mardi Gras, and being able to go home for the long weekend!

Now we're really getting into it

Hi there; Birdie here!

Week 3 of second year is done, and with it the first two tests of the semester. They were...probably okay? I'm pretty sure I passed, at any rate, but I'm not really sure how well I did. We're finished with derm path, which means there's only about two weeks left of systemic pathology. We also had our anesthesia midterm--3 weeks left of that, and after Mardi Gras we'll be starting orthopedics and surgery! I also put in my first IV catheter/hit a vein in a dog for the first time at our anesthesia lab on Tuesday, so that's exciting. Other than not screwing the port in all the way (in my defense, we had a different kind at the clinic I worked at that didn't screw, just was placed in), I totally got it! So that's really exciting.

I did make my chart for this semester, and it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. We have two exams a week for the first four weeks, but after that there's a lot of weeks where we only have one exam...it's kind of sad that that's a break for us, isn't it? And the only time there's 3 exams in a week, one of them is a take-home for behavior (which they insist on calling Animals In Society 2, even though it really isn't). And we have no exams the week after spring break, which is necessary, because there's no way I'm studying when I'm in Disney World. I added an extra column this semester, too, for "Other Major Things," mainly SAVMA convention and the Legislative Fly-In. I'm going to go to DC for a couple of days! I applied sort of the day after it was due, but I got alternate, and then I got an email a while ago that said I'm in! Well, actually it said they were pleased to tell me I'd been chosen as an alternate, which I already knew, but that email went out to people from other schools and was followed by one telling me what to do for it, so I figure that translates to "I'm in."

I'm signed up to feed the birds again this semester (day birds this time--there's only one owl left now, since BAMF passed away, and there's a lot of day birds), but we haven't got the schedule yet. We've already had a bunch of club meetings and sent out our open house requests, which of course remain pretty much blank. We've even had 2 VBMA meetings already: one on Louisiana-specific legislation and one on practice evaluation which wound up being a bunch of boring financial stuff that didn't seem very practical. Um, what else...Last weekend I went home, so that was nice. And my dad found a website that's basically a Farmer's Market that delivers. He got me a king cake that I brought to school, a bunch of blood oranges (which are basically the best, btw), and a couple other things. So that was really cool, too.

I'm still working on summer stuff (and I've only got about a week to finish it all...), but at least I know what I'm applying to: four things this year. My mentor found a project for me...actually two projects. One is the only-takes-two-weeks one, collaborating with several other people to replicate a blood pressure study using the gold standard transducers rather than the commonly used ones as in their last study. The other is a validation of some company's indirect blood pressure measurement. The timing works perfectly, too, since our Italy trip fits nicely in between those two projects. Unfortunately, though, apparently there are a boatload more letters of intent for summer scholars this year than usual, so I'm not sure what the chances are of me getting accepted for that. Thus, I'm applying for other things: Banfield (though I haven't quite figured out where my second and third choice locations are) and Tulane Primate Research Center again, and a diagnostic pathology program at Johns Hopkins. I've lined up my letters of recommendation (as of, um, yesterday) but I still need to write my letter of intent type things, so I'm hoping to work on that today.

I also need to do a lot of studying for urinary and possibly derm today since I won't have a lot of time tomorrow. I'm doing Spay Day tomorrow--and since I went to the ECC wetlab, I'm supposed to be able to intubate some cats! I'm not sure which station I'll work, but I'm probably going to try and do anesthesia again--cat wrangling is still what I'm least comfortable with. I'm also going to a Brian Regan comedy show tomorrow night, which doesn't leave a lot of time for studying! Luckily the urinary test shouldn't be bad, and we've got a good idea of what's going to be on it.

As for my reading challenges, I'm still well ahead. I have now read 10 books so far this month, which is a new record as far as I know--the last time I paid attention to how many books I read in a month was November, when I'd finished 9 and started a 10th by the 30th. I just finished a Mercedes Lackey book, The Black Swan, which I found kind of disappointing. Now I've started Group, a nonfiction book about group therapy, and it's pretty interesting so far. So despite the fact that tests have started, at least I'm keeping up with reading!

Welcome back to second year

Hi there; Birdie here!

I have now finished the first week of my second semester of second year of vet school. This means...only two more full semesters of classrooms! I'll talk about this week in a minute, but first: it's a new year, and time for reflection. So please consider this picture:

Fall 2014 exam/study schedule

This is the schedule I made last semester for every exam I had to take and every exam I had to study for. This is how many exams I had last semester...plus one, actually, since I made this after the first two weeks of class and thus after the first exam. I haven't made one for this semester yet because we're trying to move a couple of tests so I need to wait until the schedule is finalized. When I do that one, I'll try to remember to put it up here. I've heard that fall second year is the worst, but I kind of find that hard to believe when I look at how many classes we have this semester. It's 26-ish credits this semester, I think? I'm also taking 3 electives. Technically we're only supposed to take 2, but one of mine is the online Emerging Diseases or whatever class we need for licensing to write inspection certificates and such. So I can still take two others with that; mine are Skin and a case-based "advanced" feline medicine course. I tried to get into a cultural competency class, but I was literally the only person who signed up, so it got pulled. Skin is supposed to be pretty cool, though. I've heard there's lots of hands-on experience, suture practice, etc.

In general, our classes this semester seem pretty cool. Well, I'm not super excited about Farm Animal or Exotics because that's not what I want to do with my life, but eh. We're finally going to learn physical exams (in Anesthesia, of all classes!) and learn to suture! My favorite teacher, who taught us immunology, is lecturing again, so that's fun. Also we have a class with my mentor, a clinician who went to the same tiny undergrad I did, and he's a really entertaining instructor. Apparently some of my classmates have a lot of trouble following him,but I haven't had that problem. I still don't have all of my textbooks yet--two of my book orders got cancelled sometime after I made them, and I had to re-order! I got a couple of these really good Secrets books, so that's cool. They're pretty hard to find, though, and more expensive than they look like they should be. I mean, I'm used to things like my giant, heavy, two-volume internal medicine book being $100-200, but these are smallish paperbacks that I don't think should be over $50, much less $200. I think they're probably out of print and that's why. But they're really great books, with clear explanations.

This is one of the Secrets books I bought since we're taking Oncology this semester

Speaking of the new year, I decided to do a reading challenge for 2015. Two, actually--a blog I follow put up her own (only 12 books, with some overlap) so I'm doing that as well as the 52-book popsugar challenge. I've already read 4 of the 52 books (none of which counts for the 12th, unfortunately). I'm currently reading Crossed by Ally Condie for "a trilogy." I'm also doing (at least) the 52 book challenge as a photo challenge since I liked the November one so much. So don't be surprised if I talk about books on here more than usual this year. :)

The semester hasn't started stressing me yet (although I do have quite a lot of studying plans for this weekend even though the first test isn't even next week yet), but I know it's coming. I still have my 3 officerships, which means I'm about to have to meet with all of them to set up meetings for the semester and also prepare for open house. Apparently second years have certain parts of open house we're in charge of, too--I thought we were done with that! And once again I'm not sure what I'm working but it's probably club stuff not class stuff. This year it actually didn't fall at the same time as New Orleans Comic Con...but the con is this weekend, and I never registered or anything, so I'm still not going. At least I know I'm going to Dragon Con in September! I also started riding lessons again this week. My instructor keeps putting me on Cricket, and on Thursday she told me I ride him well. To which I could just say, "Really?" He is very slow, and I certainly don't feel like I ride him well. Apparently there's another student show next weekend, but I've already decided I'm not doing it--not least because she wants me to ride Cricket in the show. And I definitely can't ride Cricket well enough to do well in a show. So, pass.

I'm still not sure what I'm doing for this summer. I did update my resume (um, this week. Not actually over break), and I looked up deadlines for a bunch of programs. But then during this week my mentor approached me after class and when I told him I hadn't found anyone else to do research with over the summer, he said he'd try to think of a project I can do. I'm not really sure how I feel about that--mostly, I don't like all this uncertainty. I just really want to do something vet-related this summer. I mean, I will, it's non-negotiable, but I'd also like to 1) know what I'm doing and 2) get paid. If I don't get any of my stuff, I'll look up 2-week externships at AVMA's website (and hopefully get the Live Oak Bank one, too) and do a few of those...but I'd really rather do something paid than something where I have to pay to travel.

Oh, also, I'm all registered for SAVMA symposium! I also actually booked my room and flight at the same time, so unlike last year I'll be in the same hotel as the symposium, which will be much more convenient. This year I'm doing two wetlabs: a nutrition/critical care one and an abdominal surgery one. I'm actually getting there a day early for the nutrition wetlab, and nothing else will have started yet, so I've got a free afternoon. Symposium is in Minnesota this year, so what I'm planning on doing with that afternoon is: go to the Mall of America! I'm pretty excited about the whole thing. Also, I am DEFINITELY going to hear Temple Grandin speak this year. Last year I had to miss her because of my wetlab, but this time I checked the schedule and made sure I have that time free! Dr. Roark is also going to be speaking, so I'll try to hear him if I can. Betsy Charles is, too, but I'll miss her for abdominal surgery. It's going to be SUPER cold, though--not excited about that. Everything else, though, is looking pretty cool.

Last night I went to see Into the Woods with one of my friends. Another friend was supposed to meet us, but she couldn't find parking, couldn't find the theater, and then was too late to get a ticket. But we did randomly meet up with a few of our other classmates who were also going to see the movie! It was really well done, but I can't say I liked it a lot. There were some really weird scenes in the first part: the wolf was creepy, and I wasn't expecting the princes to be so silly. And then the second half happened, which I really wasn't expecting, and I didn't much care for the ending. I prefer a little more happily ever in my fairy tails, and I am very upset about certain deaths. I'm glad my little brother didn't end up seeing it; for all that it was PG it was very scary and almost certainly inappropriate.

One last thing before I sign off: I have a new laptop, and it's AWESOME! Apparently this isn't going to be a quick note because I have to tell the whole story. First, my gaming laptop completely died. It did the thing it did when I first got it where it wouldn't turn on, so I took it to the Muppet since he fixed it the first time. He almost fixed it, though not without severely messing with its aesthetic--instead of a power button attached to the side it would have an awkward red button from radio shack hanging out by the wires, and then he drilled a hole in it that turned out to be useless! But none of that mattered because the big wires he'd used to fix it the first time had come off the microwires in the computer itself, and it was going to be difficult to fix. So I gave up on that. Then my ordinary laptop, which mostly worked fine, kept having spurts of problems too. Finally, I think it was the week after Thanksgiving, I bought my new laptop. And I'm glad I didn't buy it earlier when I almost did, on Black Friday, because not only were the Black Friday sales still going but I also got an additional discount through LSU! So I got a really nice gaming laptop, even better than the one I was originally going to get, for less than $1,000 not including tax. I'm still getting used to it a little. It has Windows 8, which I'm not used to, and the trackpad is centered under the spacebar instead of centrally on the laptop, so I keep accidentally right-clicking. But I've successfully played some Don't Starve on it, and started Mass Effect (which I finally bought when it was on Steam Sale around Christmas). Other than Windows 8 (and certain things about that OS that unfortunately I can't turn off), it hasn't given me any problems, and I'm really happy with it.

So many exams, so little time

Hi there; Birdie here!

Wow, this morning seems so long ago, much less when I wrote last two weeks ago. The first part at least is because I woke up at 5:30 this morning and took an exam at 8. Then I stayed for an extra hour and a half after we were supposed to be done with class for a review session..that's kind of a whole 'nother story. The review was extremely tension-inducing because the teacher does things like not answering questions and shutting them down with "let's keep it simple" (even when it really was a simple question) while still telling us we need to know "all that detail." I'd rather not get into how he interrupts students trying to answer his question so that he can say the same thing they were about to say. And then I went to dinner with L & H--I finally tried Kaminari! It's a buffet-style sushi and hibachi place, and I've heard classmates talking about going there to celebrate finishing an exam because it's also a great price. It was really good! The only problem is that there's no key for what's in the sushi... I'm really glad we got to go though, would buy again.

Other than the systemic path exam we just took (which I think went fine; I didn't have to do that well to keep my grade anyway), we have all our grades back for once. We finally got parasitology...though now that I look back, that was only a couple of weeks ago? Time moves differently in vet school--I mean, that was 5 exams ago. Anyway, we got our grades back last Friday, but they had some errors in the calculation. I think they confused themselves with how much they changed the points. Anyway, getting that grade upset me--I did as bad as I thought I did--but when I heard my classmates talking about the miscalculations I hoped it would make it better. And it turns out it did; even if this class is on the normal LSU scale and not a 10-point scale, I still got the grade I wanted! We also finished pharm, and I made an A. Not a very high A, but A is A and I'm super happy I got one in pharm. I also did well on the first virology exam, which was nice, so I'm not quite so worried about this next one, which is one of the 3 exams in 3 days standing between me and Thanksgiving. I am so ready for that break, even if it's just 2 extra days!

We also signed up for elective next semester. I'm going to be in three this year: the online USDA foreign/emerging diseases class that's required for things like writing certificates of health (which doesn't count towards your quota, which is why I can take 3 electives), an advanced feline medicine class (even though I haven't taken the basic one--I heard the basic one is not great, and this is case based and should be interesting), and a "cultural competency" class (which I'm actually really interested in, but I wouldn't be surprised if no one else signs up and it gets dropped).

At this point, I'm mostly stressing more for other people around me than for myself. I'm doing fine, and it totally sucks to have 3 exams in 3 days but I'll manage, and I'm looking forward to some easy, fun, PBL with associated free time. Meanwhile, people who want to get into competitive programs are struggling and getting Cs, and others are dreading PBL because they don't work well with their groups. I feel really bad for these people, but there's not really anything I can do for them...

My computer's been acting up a little recently. When I restarted for an update earlier this week, it took several tries to power on. I thought it was just an anomaly until it happened once randomly when I tried to turn it on after a routine shutdown. Of course now it's turning on fine, when I was about to let my friend's boyfriend in IT look at it. I'm keeping my backups very up to date (I think my virology objectives are only on there, not my laptop) and luckily I kind of have a backup laptop in my gaming one, so I'm not worrying about it yet. But that's probably something to deal with after Thanksgiving when I have time. Oh, and my summer research project fell through. So now I have to figure out something else for the summer, too.

We had our last DIC meeting of the semester this week. I decided to stick with the officerships I have...I don't want to back off with responsibility, that doesn't look good, and I kind of like being three officers. Sure, it's a pain sometimes, but I'm kind of proud of being able to handle it. So yep, I'm historian again! I also helped my team to victory in jeopardy. The highlight was probably how quickly I was able to rattle off the Roentgen signs (Size, Shape, Margination, Number, Location, Opacity!) before another student had even finished one or two. Well, after the question where I knew the answer (side effect of iodinated contrast in lungs = pulmonary edema) but someone else shouted out a wrong answer first while I was trying to discuss it, I wasn't going to sit back and let them do it! Also on the note of things to be proud of--did I mention I submitted an article to the Vet Gazette? I don't think I did, especially since they rejected it for the September issue. But now it's being published! It's about the VLE, and it's going up this weekend!

I'll finish this entry by talking about my riding. The clinic...well, it got better. We did fine at first over the warm-ups, but on the first or second course (probably the second, that's how it usually works for me) I actually fell off. I didn't get hurt at all, but it kind of sucked because someone else's horse was refusing earlier but then I had to go and prove that I was the worst rider in the class. So that's cool. But Isabella only refused a couple more times after that. I learned to ride her forward into my hand, which was a really helpful piece of advice because it meant I didn't have to make her go faster to get over the jump when she already wanted to be quick. By the end we were doing pretty well, I think.

Last week I rode Sailor, one of my favorites. We did a lot of no-stirrups work. Like, maybe half the lesson without stirrups, including some trot poles and once or twice over a little crossrail. The saddle I was in (because the previous rider had it) had weird stirrups with a hook sort of attachment instead of a buckle, so when I had to cross them in front of the saddle they didn't quite lay flat. I wound up with bruises on my legs from them! Sailor got a little quick at the end but I think we did alright. This week my instructor forgot to put me on the list, but I wound up on Cajun. I think he's a little green in his re-training; he's a former barrel racer and they're apparently trying to put some advanced students on him now, which I guess I qualify? He was really quick, and I was warned to keep a nice full seat at the canter or he'd run off. Which of course meant he kept breaking back to trot--but Alea said I have a nice deep seat like she does, which makes me feel good about myself. Cajun jumped really big, especially on the last jump (in a line). It wasn't much of a boost for my ego as a rider since he wasn't really great at the exercises, but I hope I did well for the horse. We also did some no-stirrups no-reins trotting on a lunge line. It was a tiny, tight circle, which made balancing a lot harder! At least I didn't fall again.

Unlike last weekend (I went to the Renaissance fair; maybe I'll write about it next week), this weekend I don't have anything planned but studying and a trip to WalMart (although I should try to run tomorrow morning). Three tests to go...Let's do this. Almost there.