Anatomy Goats

My anatomy goat is a girl.

And she's pregnant...

... with twins. (At least we don't cut the uterus open until next week...)

:(

And, the new professor told us that they try to make sure that all goats used in anatomy lab are pregnant. That makes me really sad! So, rather than just 1 life per group that has a female goat, we're taking 2 or 3. That seems wasteful to me.

Neurology

Neurology can be really interesting. And it's nice when it feels like it finally really clicks!

And everything seems to be coming together now. And the quizzes are going better than the first few went.

Sorry this isn't long! I have a lot to do!

Student-Faculty Liason

Tomorrow are class officer elections... I'm running for Student-Faculty Liason. I think it sounds like an interesting position, and I wasn't totally thrilled with its handling last semester.

Here's the speech Leslie and I wrote up. I won't recite it word for word (I can't do that) but hopefully get the gist across:

Hey everyone, in case you don't know me I'm Kim. I know that the SFL job is difficult, and demands a lot of patience and tact. I think it also requires the ability to work with the professors and administration without being disrespectful, or too easily discouraged. Despite all that, and even having seen everything Bryan and Kati have dealt with this semester, I really want this position.
I think it's essential for the SFL to address problems using the proper channels and without being dismissive of students' concerns. Perhaps most importantly, I think that following up on issues once they've been presented to a professor or administrator and keeping the class informed of progress being made on those issues cannot be ignored.
Yesterday I dropped by Dr. Rogers' office to pick up a Rice hat (which is a long story), and she asked me about the concerns we presented to her a few weeks ago and where our class is coming from. Dr. Rogers assured me that she and the curriculum committee are equally concerned about the situation, and are working towards a solution.
I hope you'll vote for me, but even if you don't, feel free to come talk to me about any issues later. Thanks!

Cow feet are even weirder than horse feet

They really are! The blood supply and nerves to the feet of ruminants are insane.

There are names like "proper axial digital nerve II." Really, do we need that many names? Apparently, yes, but like, really? Calm down anatomists.

Study, study, study

It's amazing how much time I spend studying.

It just hits me sometimes. I spent so long studying today!

I got up at 8:30, studied 'til 10, went to the grocery store, ate lunch, studied with a classmate from noon to 2:45, hosted my study group from 3 to about 5, made dinner, studied more, took a break to read a chapter of a fun book, and then studied some more!

What a boring day... but, hopefully it will pay off and I will ace the phys test Tuesday.

Renal Physiology

The kidneys are complicated and strange!

So much back and forth and fine regulation. And things that just don't seem to make a lot of sense, intuitively. Why bother to filter things out if you're just going to suck them all back in?

Oh well...

Back to my books!

Vet School v. Med School

I don't remember who said it to me, but I was talking to someone about vet school a few days ago and about how we do the same things they do in medical school, especially the first 2 years, but about 6-10 species instead of 1. The response was "yeah, but you go into less depth, right?"

My response was something along the lines of "... No. We do the same depth. And more, sometimes."

Because, really, we do. Granted, there are some things that we skip over because they're just not going to happen in the veterinary world (trying to correct an exencephaly, for example. That's when you brain protrudes through your skull at birth because things didn't go right in the womb. Granted, your GP doesn't know how to fix this either.) Though, the gap between human and animal medicine gets slimmer every day (A&M does at least 12 greater than $1000 MRIs a week. That's just unbelievable to me!)

But, really, we know everything about animals that your GP knows about how you work... plus more! Your GP isn't going to be putting you under general anasthesia him/herself. Your GP isn't going to cut you open and move your organs around (either in a spay/neuter, or a gastropexy, or an intestinal anastamoses. All of these are surgeries regular vets do pretty frequently.)

Rumens!

Today, I stuck my arm in a cow, up to my shoulder! And not even in the super nasty part of the cow! Just the sort of nasty part of a cow.

In Physiology today, we did our rumen phys lab. So, we went over to the large animal clinic and played with the fistulated cow. She has a tunnel that goes from the outside world into the first part of her stomach. It's... really cool! We uncorked it, gloved up and stuck our arms in as far as possible. It feels really neat to touch the inside wall of the rumen. It's all wrinkly!

And I lucked out and she didn't squirt me with rumen fluid like she did Dayna!

Lab Animal Medicine!

I'm really excited!

I finally got elected for something not-by-default! I'm VP of the Lab Animal Medicine club, which as far as I can tell means I'm in charge of lining up speakers. This seems like an excellent networking opportunity for lining up summer internships next summer!

Also, largely, I'm thrilled to actually win a position. I didn't manage to get elected for anything at the beginning of the school year (granted, those elections were in the first like, 2 weeks of school, so they were pretty meaningless. "Well, I like her shirt best, so I'll vote for her.") And I got elected to the Student Chapter of the AVMA Executive Committee as Governmental Action Committee Chair because nobody ran against me.

Goats

Goats are strange... or at least, our anatomy goats are strange.


I cannot for the life of me figure out why the fat over their shoulders has approximately the texture of cottage cheese.

Schedule between now and the end of finals

4/6-4/12
-Palpation Exam (Tuesday)
-Microbiology Exam (Wednesday)
-Neuro Quiz (Wed/Thursday)
-Lab Animal Med Elections (Wednesday) (I'm running for president or VP)
-SCAVMA EC Meeting (Thursday)
-Leslie's Bachelorette party (Friday- in Austin)


4/13-4/19
-Physiology Exam (Monday)
-Correlates exam (Tuesday)
-Neuro Quiz (Wed/Thursday)
-American Association of Feline Practitioners elections (Thursday)
-Public Health Individual Response due (Friday)
-Leslie's Bridal Shower (Friday night-Saturday morning- in Dallas)
-Mentee/Mentor Matching (Sunday)

4/20-4/26
-Microbiology Exam (Wednesday)
-Neuro Quiz (Wed/Thursday)
-Neurological Exam
-Meet with Dr. Cohen's lab (Thursday)
-Open House! (Saturday)

4/27-5/1
-Public Health Group Project due (Tuesday)
-Microbiology Lab Final (Wednesday)
-Neuro Quiz (Wed/Thursday)
-Meet with Dr. Cohen's lab (Thursday)
-Correlates Final?

5/2-5/7
-FINALS!!!!!!!!!

Horse Palpations

I did another practice round for my horse palpation exam today.

And we got help from Dr. Bratton-- who was a large animal practitioner, was an assistant in my small animal anatomy lab and is assisting in neuro this semester (he used to teach it).

As Stephanie said: "Learning horse palpation from Dr. Bratton is sort of like taking a religion class from God."

And it really is! He's awesome! And so helpful! And I cannot express how grateful I am that he'd give up some of his weekend to come help us!

Small Animal Clinicians v. Large Animal Clinicians

The difference between small and large animal clinicians never ceases to amaze me. While I am in no way interested in large animal medicine, I like the doctors in the large animal hospital so much better!

They joke with each other, they joke with the students, they give more interesting tours. In general, they are just way less uptight. I really appreciate that. I think it will make the required large animal rotations 3rd and 4th year a lot more bearable. Even if I don't like/care about the information, at least they all try to make learning fun!

White Coat Ceremony

Today is our White Coat Ceremony. When it was introduced to us, they said it's traditionally a marker of your transition from preclinical to clinical studies. While that sounds like a lovely idea, it seems a bit premature. Second year is completely classroom just like first year (though they apparently spend less time in lab, which will be nice.) Third year starts a combination of clinical and classroom. So, I think maybe the White Coat Ceremony would fit better between second and third years.

Oh well, it should be a nice ceremony and a nice white lab coat. (though I still wish I had a lab coat like the ones on Bones. They manage to have a shape, besides giant solid color rectangle.)

Foal Team False Alarm

I'm actually a little bummed about it!

My foal team was on call last night from midnight to 8AM. At about 10 I got a call saying a foal was coming in around 12:30 and they'd need us there to help. I was scheduled for the second half of the shift (4AM-8AM... we're split into an A group of 3 people and a B group of 3 people who rotate first and second half of shift on call), so I went to bed pretty much right away.

Then, I got a text at 2:45 that we didn't have to go in. B group got the blood work and radiographs done.. and the foal wasn't down, so they got sent home and we didn't have to go in.

I'm kind of sad. While I'm glad not to have had to leave my apartment at 3:45 AM, it would have been neat to play with a baby foal!

Braaaaaains

Only in vet school (or, I suppose medical school) would you take a test in which there are a bunch of brains floating in little tubs of water.

There's something surreal about walking into a room full of buckets of brains.

(Nevermind that they were all cut up in totally bizarre ways, which, in fact, can make it very hard to identify structures you're used to seeing from other angles or in reference to structures that were lopped off on the test specimen.)


Oh well, now that the neuro exam is over it's time to catch up in Microbiology!