First Post of Third Year

Well, I've decided to try and turn over a new leaf and actually update this thing more than once every two years. That being said, it does pretty adequately sum up vet school so far:
- first year everyone is excited and anxious and thrilled to be there
- second year- forget it. If you have time to be posting, you have time to be studying Pharmacology (or Path, Bacti, Clin Path, etc. etc.)

So now that second year has been conquered, I'm going to try and keep this better updated for the start of third year. We'll see how we go.

The first week of the semester is already complete and thank goodness for that. Many of us agreed that we felt more nervous starting this year than previously, not entirely sure of why.

Third year begins the really scary stuff (or the most exciting courses, if you still have any optimism remaining). Our course load for this semester includes:

Core classes (that we all take):
Surgery P&P
Gastroenterology
Public Health
Communications Skills
Ophthamology
Neurology

Track Courses (small animal for me)
Small Animal Medicine 2
Small Animal Techniques

Electives
Goat and Sheep Med
Oncology 1
Career Development

Fortunately, despite the scariness of the course load, this semester already seems better than last year. For one example- first day I had a class later than 8 am? August 28. First day for the second years? September 26. Poor little souls.

Surgery P&P feels like the biggest obstacle at the moment- mainly because everything is so new and there are so many new skills that we're being expected to learn. We have our surgery pre-test next week, and we're expected to be proficient in about 6 different suture patterns, aseptic technique (that is, gowning, gloving, prepping and transporting the patient all without breaking sterility- actually much harder than it sounds!), anesthesia protocols, and probably some other things I'm choosing to forget at the moment. Amy and I watched the surgery videos this past weekend and practiced in the lab, so hopefully we'll be okay.

Surgeries are scheduled in rotations of three. The first time my group has surgery, I'm scheduled as the anesthetist. The next round I'll be the surgeon and finish up as the assistant surgeon. So cross your fingers for me (and my patient) on October 8!

Other than that, GI is the major backbreaker this semester. I'm hoping that after Clin Path and Pharmacology from last year it will at least be managable.

Outside of vet school, not too much else to report. Trying to decide what to do after graduation (internship, private practice, etc.) and where else I might want to try living. All I know is that it won't be Blacksburg (come on, I think 8 years is enough) and it won't be Northern Virginia. I guess we'll just see where life takes me!

Okay, time to go to Oncology.