First Spay today!

Whoops, I've already failed on my attempt to keep this thing updated. Started getting the hate text messages yesterday so I figure it's about time.


Third year has been insane the last few weeks. We had two exams last week: Surgery midterm and GI exam 1. Surgery went well, very straightforward, very fair. GI, well, haha- lets put it this way. There's a disclaimer in the notes that warns that we will get lower grades in this class than any class before it... and yep, that's pretty much right. He gave a 10 point curve right off the bat (THANK GOODNESS!), so the grade in the end is okay. Oh well. At least there are a few more grades in that class.


Over the weekend K, T, A, V and I went to the little fall festival at Sinkland Farms in C'burg. It was a nice break from studying- beautiful weather and the start of fall. We're going to go back at the end of October to pick some pumpkins before Parent's Weekend. Sunday Tahlia went to the DogSwim at my apartment complex. She was one of only three dogs to even get in the pool- everyone else just ran around like crazy people until their owners would toss them in. Crazy golden retriever.

This week continued the insanity. Monday we had a bone marrow biopsy lab for Small Animal Clin Tech. It was sort of stressful, because there wasn't a whole lot of preparation and we were sort of thrown back into anesthesia/pain management, something alittle fuzzy for most of us. Two of my group did BM bx, and then we all did joint arthrocentesis (joint tap) and lymph node biopsies. I was in the first section, and we were supposed to recover our dogs and then go to our afternoon Communication Skills butttt our dog Velma had other ideas. It took her almost 2 full hours to recover (we had given IV morphine for pain control) and eventually the staff had to reverse her to get her to wake up. So we missed the Comm Skills Lab and actually had to sort of do it in the lab, while recovering our dog.

Tuesday was the public health exam, which went suprisingly well. I say suprisingly because his questions have been getting more and more challenging through the years... and most of us had zero motivation to study given our hectic schedule this week. Tahlia also decided it would be a good time to get sick, prompting a good clean up of the apartment- evidently pool water does not agree with her. Poor puppy- she was fairly miserable... as was I.

Tuesday evening we had our pre-surgery exam for today's spay. That went well- our group works really well together and J had done a lot of the physical exam by the time we had gotten there. Our dog is super cute and very well mannered, more than I can say for some of the other dogs in the lab. We came back early this morning to check on her again and walk her.

I'm the anesthetist today, which I'm pleased about. I did a lot of it over the summer, and while I'm still very nervous, I feel prepared. It'll be good to have a lower-key role this first lab I think, to get an idea for how everything works and get over some of the initial anxiety. We'll start preparations around noon today, and hopefully be done by 5. Then I have a group meeting, check on the dog this evening, then home to collapse in my bed!!! Tomorrow I have to come in early again to check on our surgery dog, then it's my day to care for/medicate our bone marrow dog Velma both in the morning and tomorrow evening.

Let's just say I can't wait until Friday- entire day off :)

Okay, time to go calm down before surgery- wish us luck!!

Senior Schedule

Ahhh, well we had our senior scheduling meet today. To sum it up... stressful. A lot of rules to learn and requirements to satisfy, but the end result was we got our tentative schedules. I don't really know if this is a good or bad schedule, so I didn't switch anything. But here's where it stands right now:



Rotation 1: 5/11-5/31: Lab services (VMRCVM)
Rotation 2: 6/1 - 6/21: Production Management Medicine (VMRCVM)
Rotation 3: 6/22-7/12: Ophthalmology (VMRCVM)
Rotation 4: 7/13 - 8/2 : Small Animal Med (VMRCVM)
Rotation 5: 8/3 - 8/23 : Radiology (VMRCVM)
Rotation 6: 8/24- 9/13: Anesthesia (VMRCVM)
Rotation 7: 9/14- 10/4: Small Animal Surgery (VMRCVM)
Rotation 8: 10/5-10/25: Community Practice (VMRCVM)
Rotation 9: 10/26- 11/15: Large Animal Clinical Services (VMRCVM)
Rotation 10: 11/16-12/6 : Speciality Med (Cardio or Neuro) (VMRCVM)
Rotation 11: 12/7 - 1/3 : Speciality Med (Cardio or Neuro) (VMRCVM)
Rotation 12: 1/4- 1/24: Elective Block (TBD)
Rotation 13: 1/25-2/15: Elective Block (TBD)
Rotation 14: 2/16 - 3/7 : Elective Block (TBD)
Rotation 15: 3/8 - 3/28: Small Animal Surgery 2 (VMRCVM)
Rotation 16: 3/29-4/18: Small Animal Medicine (VMRCVM)
Rotation 17: 4/19-5/9: Elective Block (TBD)



Overall, I'm fairly content with it... happy to have a SAM block at the beginning before boards (Nov/Dec) and one at the end before launching into an internship or private practice. Any VMRCVM alum have any ideas?



Now I also need to decide on my elective blocks. One is dedicated to public/corporate- which might translate into a shelter medicine block for me. The other three are electives, one of which may be used as vacation. The other two I'm considering different speciality practices, since we get little formal exposure to Oncology (it's not offered as a speciality here) and to also see where I might like to apply for internships. Aye aye aye, so much to think about!



In other news...
This weekend went well- the game was fun, although the play itself was rather boring. C. and F. came with us- their first Hokie game ever!! So that was neat... taking them over on the BT, teaching them football cheers and traditions, and just enjoying the overall Hokie football atmosphere. T.S. Hanna held off to the East, so we had beautiful weather (althought a little warm at times). A. Some of our other classmates showed up later to sit with us, although most of our seating group was MIA (I'm thinking a wee bit too much Novartis tailgating before hand, haha).

And with that, time for bed. We have two big exams next week (Surgery and GI 1) that I really should get started on... eventually. :)

End of week 2

Ah well, week two is done. And I have to say, third year still beats second year by a long run. Poor second years had their first midterm this morning, while I went to school at 1pm and don't have my first test for another 10 days.

Well, I guess I should technically say my second test. Yesterday we had our Surgery Pre-Test before beginning our surgeries. Without saying too much and violating the honor code, I'll just say that it was a pass/fail test where we had to demonstrate various surgical (sutures, instruments, etc) and surgical preparation skills (scrubbing, gowning) in order to perform our spay surgeries beginning next week. While we were all nervous as hell, it went well and without any major trauma. Definitely thankful it's all over though! And now on to surgery... fortunately for my group not for another few weeks.

We have our senior schedule meeting on Monday to determine next year. So in three days I'll know where I'll be until May 2010. The way scheduling works is they print off pre-determined rotations for each person within each track (small animal, food animal, equine, mixed, public/corporate) and then we simply pick one out of the pile. Very scientific. Since I'm a small animal tracker, most of my rotations will be in the hospital with two electives. I'm not sure yet how we're allowed to schedule our external blocks but hopefully that will be cleared up on Monday and I can get to work on that. I'd like to spend my electives at different oncology centers to help get an idea of maybe where to apply for internships.

Other big news... tomorrow kicks off the first home game of my seventh season as a Hokie! Last weekends game against ECU didn't go so hot... so let's all hope we can beat Furman tomorrow (or as my friend called it... our debut against St. Mary's School for Girls). So bring it on, TS Hanna- it's time for HOKIE FOOTBALL!

GO HOKIES!