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.

Semester 1 is DONE!

Phew. What a ride. I am very proud and happy to say that semester one is finished! It has been the biggest journey, possibly only second to my time in Australia.
Let's recap:
- 9 classes:

• Ethology
• Professional Foundations
• Anatomy
• Biochemistry
• Physiology
• Immunology
• Large Animal Husbandry
• Histology
• Embryology

- amazing lab partners!
- fabulous new friends
- not nearly enough sleeping or having fun, although we managed to squeeze it in when we can!

I learned not only about the foundations of veterinary medicine, but also a lot about myself and my other 89 classmates. It's amazing the different personalities we all have and the progress we've made in working together as a cohesive group. Even my arch nemesis has slowly started to gain my respect :) Our class had some drama, both inane and tragic, but we all managed to survive to the end! So, semester one is done. The grades all turned out great, even better than I expected in certain classes such as Biochemistry "*coughcough* . Now it's time to go home, rest for a few weeks and come back ready for Semester 2 and a whole new set of challenges. And despite the long hours of class and studying, the insane amounts of information to learn, and the huge quantity of stress- I love (almost) every second of it!

Two tests down, 197 to go.

I don't know if it's really 197, but I'm sure it's a lot.
So as of 4:00 today, I am finally done with my first physiology and anatomy tests. Both went well, I think. Anatomy was tough, but I studied for more hours than other final before now, and I think I knew most of the answers. The practical portion I thought was fairly easy, but the written section was a little tricky! We'll see soon enough how it went :)
the rest of the week is FINALLY a bit slower. Tonight the second years are hosting the first years at PKs downtown. Then the rest of the week will hopefully consist of catching up on all the work I fell behind on last week, and preparing for the Grey's Anatomy premiere on Thursday. You can see where my priorities are! It should be fun though, we're having a bunch of classmates over to watch it- a chance to relax and hang out away from school!
That's pretty much it for the moment- off to relax and do nothing for the rest of the evening as a reward for two weeks of constant studying :-)

Vet school owns me

Just as my wonderful professors predicted, you do tend to drop off the face of the Earth now and then. This past weekend, Physiology consumed my life. We had our very first vet school exam this morning, and it went okay! I'm cutting myself a little slack because a) definitely not in school mode yet b) I knew next to nothing about Physiology until now and c) this professor's notes/lectures are terribly confusing! So all in all, I'm happy with the grade I got!

Other things to catch up on- Anatomy has become slightly more interesting. Two weeks ago we signed up for large animal specimens in lab. Being a class full of horse crazy girls, we all scrambled to sign up for a horse. Haha, joke was on us! My new lab group- Katie (my roommate), Megan, and Patrick, ended up with a fat little pony. The four equine specimens were evidently Hackney ponies that had grown so mean that their owner "donated" them to the vet school because he could no longer handle them. Not only were they badly embalmed, but they had about an inch of subQ fat covering the entire trunk. So while the people working on goats and calves spent 15 minutes cleaning their specimen, we spent two lab periods. Gross. We named our pony Star Jones, for obvious reasons.

Tahlia and I spent a fair bit of time exploring this past week/weekend. Her spay incision from four weeks go (!!!) became infected, so after a visit to Dr. Debby and a hefty dose of Clavamox, we decided to avoid the dog park/Duck Pond for awhile. Instead we discovered Heritage Park, a 169 acre park owned by the Town of Blacksburg. It's so serene and not very many people know of it, so it's the perfect place to go and relax and walk through the wildflowers and the fields. Definitely one of our new favorite places!

Okay I think that's about it for now. We have our first anatomy test coming up next Monday- going to require a lot of preparation for that one, so don't be too surprised if I fall into the abyss again!

Hope you all are doing well!

5 days down, 1349 to go

I don't know why I torture myself, I really don't. A member of the class of 2009 had a countdown to their graduation going so I thought... sure, why not have a giggle and see what it is for 2010. How utterly depressing... see for yourself at:

Countdown To VMRCVM Class of 2010 Graduation

Anyway, week 1 went pretty well. Glad its under our belts and we can move on.
On Thursday we began our dog dissections... and they let us play with scapels. You know we all had mad-surgeon fantasies with our gloves and dissection kits open! Anyway, our dog is Gooey- her name comes from the fact that she is, well, gooey. She's a black shepherd mix who will be with us all semester. We didn't do very much on Thursday except begin our basic dissections and locate external features. I think Gooey will become one of our closet friends in the coming months!

This weeked I spent relaxing. Friday, Heather and I went to the dog park with Tahlia and Oakland. We had to wait for the silly C'burg High School Cross Country team to finish practicing, but the kids waited patiently on leash until they left. By that point, about 15 dogs were running around the park. This is only the second time Tahlia's been here, so I was a little nervous, but no need- she immediately forgot about me and ran around like a crazy puppy. She found the little section of the Duck Pond and immediately dove in. While every other dog would hop in for a moment and then run out, my little water retriever refused to get out. About 25 minutes or so later, she was bouncing around in the water with a boxer puppy when she let out a loud YELP. Then she comes slinking out of the water, non-weight bearing on her left rear leg, it just kind of flopping behind her. Greattttttttttttttttttttttttt. Instead of panicing, I palpated her leg and checked her range of motion- her response was only to lick my hand and wag her tail. A young guy who had been there awhile came over to check on her, and couldn't see anything visibly wrong either- except that her leg was still floppy. No worries, despite the near heart attack on my part, Tahlia rolled on the ground for a minute or two, then bounded up and ran away like nothing had happened. Jeez. At least she's okay- although smelled pretty darned awful!

Saturday, Sara came down to play. She helped me put my new bed together, then we had a classic undergrad-esque night of O'Charlies and some TV. Unfortunately, we're now old people and we were asleep by 11:45. Hahaha. Up early this morning, we went out for breakfast and then watched some more TV. i tried to do as little as possible until this afternoon, because I know my weekends will be getting progressively more stressful. Might as well enjoy it while I can!

Anyway, tomorrow is a pretty light day! Anatomy at 10 and Physio at 11... and thats it. I have to come back for a SCAVMA meeting (student chapter of the american veterinary medical association) that's pretty much mandatory at 5, but until then I'm free!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!
Two of my favorite pictures that my dad took when Tahlia was just a baby! Man, she used to be so cute!