Hodgins decided to talk to his dad for a while

kimmiecat: ;/'.............................................................................................................................................\
nate.bishop11: huh?
hodgins!???
its been so long Hodgins!
i miss ya bud!
you behaving?
kimmiecat: IOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo'[p; buuuu7pppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp
nate.bishop11: darn i still don't understand you cat

Funny/Interesting Things Professors Say #6

Small Animal Medicine
“If you’re high, you don’t die.”
“so nobody’s taking any pig pancreases and squeezing them…”
“and what happened? It took us 15-20 years to find out we’re dumb.”
“I’m just going to lay down on the floor and cry right now.”
“or it could be some by product that’s mostly chicken feathers.”
“I’m not going to get on the floor and seizure…”
“those other glands are sitting there having a picnic. They’re taking a nap.”
“if you just give them oral calcium, you may as well just sprinkle water on their legs.”
“everything gets revved up like a cat on red bull”
“they’re like sick chickens… they all look the same”
“In vet school, I think I highlighted ‘ruffled feathers and pasty vent’ for all the chickens.”
“The fact that you’re all here and relatively alert means that you had your morning cortisol surge”
“Iatrogenic… which means ‘my bad’”
“If I said ‘pop quiz!’… it takes about 4 minutes… but in 4 minutes you’d have doubled your cortisol.”
“the heart doesn’t like being bathed in potassium… if has no sense of humor about that.”
“the best test to see if a gland is dead is to kick it really hard and see if it moves.”
“we are going to come up to it and pharmacologically shout in its ear.”
“The whole point of being a tumor is not obeying the rules!”
“they think old age mandates them to look like that…”
“If you see someone pull up 1 cc of dex SP and put it in a small dog, have a sharp intake of breath”
“and then the tumor thinks ‘I may be small, but I’m not frightened!’”
“If Europeans can do it, surely Americans can too”
“I have like 2 multiple choice questions on your exam… keep that in mind.”
“sometimes foo foo dogs… you throw a ball at them… who cares?”
“can you see the distichia in these dogs? Crank up your imagination”
“Give all your clients a sharpei, boxer or pug for Christmas and keep yourself in business.”
“Animals that live on the couch are less likely to be impaled with a large stick than a hunting dog.”
“syncope and sudden death are the same except you wake up from one of them”
“your eye is not very good at hearing things”

Large Animal Medicine
“The mare doesn’t look sick then next thing you know *pffft* you have a dead fresh fetus on the ground.”
“Baytril is rampantly used in the small ruminant industry… if they’re ugly they’ll treat it with bayrtil.”
“In a pig, it’s an IP injection… intra-pig.”
“it’s not an AVMA recognized method of euthanasia… but if that’s your goal…”
“you can dance in a cow’s belly in muddy boots then hose them out and they’ll do fine. A horse would not tolerate that.”
“I’ll tell you this is a 3 year old thoroughbred racehorse… a good one… a fast one.. and he’s not been running good lately”
“You guys have enough on your plate without bearing weight on your sole.”
“Color is important in treatment!”
“Oprah Winfrey got… no… show some control… oh well, I started it.”
“pennis…pennis… it’s not a game you play with a raquet. It’s a male reproductive organ.”
“you can get out of a lot of things if you fake a seizure”
“the mounter or the mountee… whichever you prefer to be”
“that’s a big teat… or 2 testicles.”
“I kid you not… it’s made out of shark… woven something shark… no really, shark.”
“… well, the people that own them… the sheep and goat… they don’t know.”
“Once you are all the way in there, it’s a pleasurable experience”
“early stage feces… they call it feed”
“why do you guys laugh when I try to teach you things?”
“When you say things, people assume that you mean them”
“All my patient, as a food animal vet, die… and then we eat them”
“a lot, a lot, of dairy men are pinging their own cows… *laughter*… have a little decorum”

Emergency Medicine
“It makes sense that Florida has one…. They’ve been hit by hurricanes forever and 10 days.”
“It’s like tryingto text at a football game…it’s not going to happen.”

Primate Medicine
“monkeys are like Italian family… everything is going fine then WHAM something happens and somebody’s getting smacked.”
“we call them the cheerleaders, the younger breeder groups we have.”
“at some point, all of this gilded cage will end and you’re going to graduate.”
“so you’re starting to play doctor..”
“I can learn so much about you, Will, if I know your weight and look at your stool.”
“Don’t wear white. If you do, they’ll throw and you’ll get campylobacter and shigella.”
“lubrication is something we strive for in all aspects of sex”

Radiology
“it’s like saying they have 2 elbows. I simply don’t care.”
“it’s spondylosis deformans… and it all makes me yawn.”
“does everybody know what golf is? That Tiger Woods guy… just google it.”
“I’m Dr. E as you all know and I love imaging.”
“Or are these inspisated boogers?”

Surgery
“these are not tablets that are sent from heaven.”
“therio potential. *rocker fingers*”
“if surgery was easy, there wouldn’t be so many medicine people.”

SR Medicine
“And I’m sorry, if you walk in with a packed cell volume of 8, you’re getting ready to die, you just may not know it yet.”
“you’re going to have a few animals out there who are problem children.”
“the parasites aren’t going to hurt the horses… so use them as a big vacuum cleaner.”
“We need to DEworm them… they did a fine job of worming themselves.”
“It’s sort of like a plumber… his plumbing always leaks”
“I’m sorry, this is not that… this is a testicle.. I see that now.”
“word got around that there was this guy you could scratch his back and he’d ejaculate… he was the most popular patient in the hospital”
“I’ve seen a lot of Chlamydia problems.”
Professor: “Do you have any experience?” Classmate:“With Chlamydia? yes. … no, I meant the vaccine!”
“you can eat and take care of business all in the same place… very efficient if you’re a cat.”
“once you get 3 or 4 parasites in there, it’s hard to get enough nutrition… I know… I was just talking about my granddaughter and now I’m calling them parasites… but that’s what they are!”
“there for a while, I was kind of a rockstar the goat world”

Baby Goats!

The best part of large animal skills was definitely NOT being at school at 7AM every weekday for 3 weeks (5PM for 1 week and both times for 1 weekend) to feed and walk a horse. Or, really, several horses. I get it that knowing the husbandry of the animals we treat is important, but if I wanted the responsibility of owning a horse, I would own a horse.

The ACTUAL best part of large animal skills was the labs themselves. We learned how to cast cattle, which is a fancy word for pull them onto the ground using a strategically placed rope and 1 (or maybe 2) person (people.) We anesthetized pigs. We drew cow blood. We trimmed goat feet. Even better, we went and examined the baby research goats! There were babies from a couple days old to a couple months. They were so very cute.

It's things like this that remind me why I'm here.

It's Like Being 14 Again

One of my professors recently said that being a 3rd year in vet school is like being 15. You're almost grown up, and you want it so bad, but there's nothing you can do to speed it up. It's so close you can taste it, but it's just out of reach.

But, I think that it's like being 14. The dream, the growing up, the independance of it all is so close. The license is close. But 4th year is like being 15. You're almost there. You've got a learners permit. You get to try it in real life. There are real risks and real rewards but there's someone there watching over you, guarding your back.

I can't wait. I want to grow up!

My Own Animals Are a Great Learning Experience

My kitty, Elli, has a long and sordid medical history (this is my favorite way to start this story! It’s the vet student equivalent of “on a dark and stormy night…”)

The important part of her history is that she has a history of (really severe) reaction to vaccinations. This is really not all that uncommon, though I would argue that the degree of severity she had is out of the ordinary. She also is really freaked out at the vet… she spikes a stress fever and even develops a heart murmur only in the clinic (I can hear it at the clinic and not at home, and she’s even had an echocardiogram).

When we moved back to vet school after a summer at home, I noticed that Elli was coughing. She’d had a coughing spell for a couple minutes a couple times a week. One of those all out cat coughs where they flatten themselves toward the ground and streeeeetch their necks out. I took her home with me to the Banfield I worked at over the summer and we narrowed it down to being feline asthma or potentially an upper respiratory tract infection. We ended up giving her depo-medrol (a long acting steroid) with a presumptive diagnosis of feline asthma.

A week and a half later, I noticed that she has a mass about the size of a pecan right where she got the injection.

I talked to one of the feline internal medicine professors (Dr. Zoran) about her medical history, long term and her more recent. She told me to never ever ever again give Elli depo-medrol, because she’s probably reacting to the substances that make the depo-medrol a long acting steroid. She told me to aspirate the mass and take the stained slides to Dr. Barton (the oncologist/cytologist). I actually went and told Dr. Barton the same story and she told me that she’s never seen/heard of/read about a sarcoma (cancer) associated with depo-medrol (though they are associated with vaccines). She gave me instructions about what kind of sample to take (she wanted a core biopsy.)

My friend Ashley and I pinned Elli down at home and took a core biopsy of the mass. When we pulled the needle out, she oozed out some lemon pudding consistency material. (Don’t you love how pathology uses food descriptions?) So we took an impression smear of that and then decided to try to aspirate the mass.

I stained the slides then looked at them with Dr. Barton. We went over them and found the mass was just full of necrotic tissue, with some degenerating neutrophils and a little bit of the drug.

It’s fun to learn from my own pets! (Though, I hope Elli doesn’t develop any more medical problems for a long time!)

Surgery

Surgery class is intense. All of the group positions are intimidating in their own way.

The anesthetist is responsible for maintenance and monitoring the patient for the duration of the surgery. This involves taking measurements every 5 minutes for the entire surgery time. That's a lot of measurements. And they're in charge of making sure the animal stays under anesthesia. At the end, they're responsible for euthanzing the animal, which is a weighty and emotionally, if not technically, difficult process.

The surgeon and assistant surgeon are responsible for cutting into the flesh of an animal, maintaining the sterility of the area, and closing the incisions they make. This process is done with various teachers circling around and watching you like a hawk. There's the added problem that you want to ask questions but it often feels like asking questions and having your work evaluated by an already-trained eye (rather than your and your partner's starting-to-be-trained eye) will make you lose points. While we're supposed to be in this to learn to do it right, it's hard for us to stomach earning a 17/25! Most of us are used to much higher grades than that!

Funny/Interesting Things Professors Say #5

Small animal medicine
“… I have a Bernese Mountain Dog… which is kind of ridiculous.”
“The other thing about cancer cells that’s really dastardly…”
“… well it won’t be available for the dogs that were dead…”
“…cut them off and put it under the mattress with a frog’s leg and it will go away.”
“I’d rather have 6 years with a boxer than 17 years with a Chihuahua”
“3 days later his right atrium ruptured… which is suboptimal”
“he will get revenge… in a multitude of ways… most involving urine and feces.”
“when clients freak out about amputation, I ask ‘how many legs do you have?’ and they say ‘well… 2.’ And I say ‘well, you do pretty well.’”
“and then the reconstruction people will build you a new nose and you and you can go into public.”
“no pet should die without the benefit of steroids.”
“the recurrent laryngeal nerve is something one avoids in surgery if one can.”
“there are lots of important things with long names in there… and some short names too.”
“we’re talking therapeutic radiation, not nuclear destruction…”
“a cure for cancer is to live long enough to die of something else.”
“that’s a surgery for a person really experienced at removing sphincters”
“this is the rectum of a dog… but it’s too close for you to tell that.”
“You can’t just walk up to someone you don’t know and say ‘this is a bad plan!’”
“And no one knew then that cisplatin splats cats…”
“I said ‘I don’t know if this treatment is going to be possible because we need to be able to get the bloodwork faster…’ and he said ‘Oh, ok. I’ll get a plane.’ And he flew in for every chemo treatment the dog needed.”
“perhaps they are smart about some things… but this is not one of them.”

Radiology
“if you think you can slap a cast on any fracture, you’re living in the 1940’s”
“if you’re left with a jaw that doesn’t work… you’re screwed”
“you can use your brain and be right a lot of the time.”
“but my grandma didn’t go to vet school… you did.”
“… I would be correct, and I would be a bad doctor”

Large animal medicine
“no matter what is wrong with a horse, with a heart rate of 120… it’s bad.”
“normal horses are pretty boring”

Animal Models
“Betty White’s writing kind of induces violence.. but she doesn’t do it herself… she’s kind of old..”

Surgery
“He’s young and nice… I’m going to try to fix that… I can’t fix the young…”
“I’m probably not going to bite your head off… almost definitely”

Emergency Response and Management

So far, my favorite class is my Emergency Response and Management elective. It's essentially about the process of preparing for and responding to crisis events. Those include any size natural disasters (tornadoes, hurricanes, earth quakes, flood, drought, etc.), infrastructure disasters (bridge collapse, fire, etc.), terrorist attacks, etc.

The grade in the class is based on completing 4 of the FEMA training classes for emergency response (and attendance.) Because of this, the students in this class will be in the first group of people that the vet school response team will pull from for students to take to disaster response.

We're also listening to lectures about the process of preparing a community for disasters- either in their area or what they should plan to do to shelter other communities.

I'm kind of hoping that something happens during 4th year that we'll get called to respond to! I think it would be awesome!



Actually, on this topic, September is Emergency Preparedness Month! You should check out this link and make sure that you and your pets are prepared!

http://www.ready.gov/america/

Alcoholic Monkeys!

Today in Primate Medicine we learned about lots and lots and lots of different kinds of monkeys.

However, my favorite was the African Green Monkeys. They have a very strong dominance hierarchies, which has been interesting in studies using them to study alcoholism. The monkeys really enjoy screwdrivers (orange juice and vodka). The alpha ones, however, don't drink much because they're too busy protecting their social status. The ones in the middle of the social structure drink socially for fun. The ones at the bottom of the social ladder become alcoholics.

That would be a really interesting study to have participated in! Though, perhaps not to clean up after. Drunk people are annoying enough; I can't imagine drunk monkies.

Back to School!

I am having my (probably? maybe?) last first week of school ever!

I haven't had the first lecture of all my classes yet, but so far things are going really well! However, I am a little nervous about the fact that my schedule changes significantly every 4 weeks! That's kind of scary. I'm pretty sure that a lot of us are going to show up in the wrong places at least a couple times.

Finals!

I'm not expecting to blog much this week... I'm going to be immersed in finals.

Monday: Pathology
I need an 80% on this one to get an A in the class. Not bad!

Tuesday: Radiology
I need a 91% on this one to get an A in the class. That kind of makes me nervous.

Wednesday: Infectious Disease and Public Health
I need an 83% on Infectious Disease and a 70% on Public Health for A's.

Thursday: Toxicology
I'm riding a 102% in the class right now. Based on the weight of the final, I need an 81% for an A.

Friday: Surgery/Anesthesiology
Since I have no real idea of what I made on the lab practical last week, I don't really know what I need for an A. Probably something beween an 82-87%. Hopefully she'll get the lab test back to us before the end of the week.

“… and then you had an epiphany.”

Love him or hate him, I find Dr. Willard’s lecture style in our (pre-)correlates class hilarious.

We’re given a case presentation and lab data about a week before class and are expected to generate a list of the most likely diagnoses, a set of tests we’d like to run to narrow it down more, and what we would do to treat the animal right then. In class, he calls on people from the class roster and asks them questions about the case. (He’s always going to ask you why you said what you said, too.)

If you’re wrong, he corrects you by saying, “… and then you had an epiphany…”

I have to try really hard not to crack up every time he says it! It such a hilarious and tactful way to say that you’re wrong and you should try again. (It can get frustrating, though, to watch a classmate flounder while you have an answer you’d like to give.)

Funny/Interesting Things Professors Say #4

Professor quotes

Path
“and if you’re a human… which everyone in here is…”
“It’s the retching of all retching…”
“If you have proteinuria… let me know!”
“If you’re a person, and we all are…”


Inf. Dz
“If I can’t latch on and I’m in the GI tract, I get washed out.”
“As you’re walking down the alley, the cows are lifting their tails and literally shooting it at you.”
“Veterinarians are the foremost poop-ologists.”
“That’s pretty close to screamin’ high.”

Tox
“Let me tell you what these stupid sheep do.”
“Any questions on LSD?”
“some people swear by fescue, other people swear at fescue.”
“I guess it’s ok to mutilate them as long as you don’t pick them.”
“I figure if they’re edible, I’ll eat them. I’m not picking anything off a cow patty.”
“people really want to get somebody else to pay for their mistakes.”
“We’ve been fighting France’s wars for year.”
“If you have to be bitten by one of these snakes… you want the copperhead.”

Surgery
“there are a lot of voices that go on in my head, but that’s not one of them”
“look at me! I can do hand ties. Breaks the ice with people..”
“It can be a pretty… whole body experience… to do those surgeries.”

Public Health
“What about the cool, new, sexy organisms.”
“I sit in the men’s restroom and hear the commode flush and I listen… then I hear the sink.”
“We need to learn from the blacks. They’re washing their hands.”
“There’s a stranger out there, and he’s got a pig under his coat. He’s probably a bioterrorist.”
“You’re supposed to know it.. but I’m not going to test on it because I can’t remember it either.”
“The kid gets overexcited about the kitten, the kitten gets underexcited about the kid, and voila! The gets scratched.)
“To a cat, the whole world is a litter box.”
“What are you, a laboratorian?”
“Are there any fish people… not fish people… aquarium types in here?”
“When you don’t have enclosed spaces for cats, you have escapees… which is sub-optimal.”
“45% of people have more than 1 pet… especially the cat folks.”
“long haired cats are like dust mops”
“it will turn a cat yellow… if you do it only once, it probably won’t be permanent.”
“I don’t know many dolphins that go hiking in the woods”
“lepto really, really likes Hawaii… can’t really blame it…”
“There’s nothing here that really screams ‘ I have leptospirosis!’”
“If you had to pick a brucella to be infected with… pick canis.”

Schedule!

They finally posted our elective schedules for next year! I'm pretty exicted about it! Though, there may be some changes later.

Sterile/Aseptic Technique

As it turns out, maintaining sterile technique for the length of an average teaching hospital surgery is going to be really hard to do! And in some ways incredibly frustrating.

First of all, my New Year's Resolution for 2010 was to stop chewing my fingernails (and cuticles.) So far, this has been a huge success. I had long, pretty fingernails. But, for proper surgical techinque your fingernails have to be 1-2 millimeters long and can't be painted. I cut them before lab last week to shorter than they've been since just after I quit chewing them... and they were still too long. I had to cut them even shorter before I could scrub in! And, I'll probably have to cut them again tomorrow because they've grown quite a bit since last week.

Then, there's scrubbing in which is, quite frankly, painful. It's not so bad on the fingertips and fingers, but when I get down to my palms and arms... ow! We have to use a really bristly brush and scrub at least 20 times per section (and you divide each finger into 4 sections, each hand into 4 sections, and each arm into 8 sections.) Also, we have to keep our arms held above our waist, with our elbows above our wrists. That doesn't sound hard until you try to hold your arms in that unatural position for 10 minutes or more.

The rest of the process is just a little hard to get the hang of. There's drying your hands while bent over a little bit and not touching the towel to yourself, the environment or an area you've already dried. Then there's putting on a gown without touching it to the table or the ground or putting your hands out of the sleeves. Then there's putting on gloves over the sleeves of your gown.

It's a hard set of new skills and habits to develop, but in the long run, it's worth it. If you learn top of the line now, when you slide a little in practice hopefully you'll still be good enough you aren't killing patients with infections.

“Expertise generally consists of doing a lot of small, boring, seemingly insignificant things very, very well”

Dr. Willard said this to the Internal Medicine club at a lunch meeting at one point and it’s really stuck with me. Because, it’s really true but I’d never thought about it that way before.

On TV, the experts in things have these really cool, sexy jobs where they do awesome stuff all the time. And while veterinarians get to do some really awesome things and save animal lives and such, the process of getting there and the process of doing it are actually rather small, boring and tedious.

As we’re going through the process of learning how to put together our cases for third year correlates, it turns out the process of diagnostic medicine is quite tedious. It’s nothing like House. Granted, we’re generally doing less rare (“zebra”) cases and more routine (“horse”) cases. Also, veterinary medicine is still very closely tied to your clients’ economics, unlike human medicine. We can’t just run hundreds of dollars of tests and hope something sticks, we have to pick the 1 or 2 tests that are most likely to get you the answer you need because that’s all your client is going to pay for.

So, basically, I’m going to keep trying to do these small, seemingly insignificant things very, very well!

Radiology

Radiology almost always feels like playing "Where's Waldo."

Sometimes it feels like a normal game- where you get the satisfaction of finding him. But most of the time, it feels like somebody gave Waldo an invisibility cloak.

The pointer flashes over an area of grey and wiggles around. You're supposed to be seeing a lung lobe, or a liver lobe, or a lymph node... Mostly, you nod, draw a circle on your notes in that area and hope you'll be able to see it when you sit down to study... Or that, at least, on the exam, you can pick something if they ask you to ID something in that area.

Poinsettias

I think it's pretty common myth/knowledge/lore that poinsettias are toxic to dogs. I know I had always heard that.

We learned this week in Toxicology that while poinsettias were quite toxic in the 70's, the ones sold commercially aren't anymore. The poinsettia sellers have bred the toxic agent out of the plants.

I think that's really awesome! (especially because it means I can have poinsettias at Christmas now! Sadly, lilies are still out.)

Pedagogy

One of my biggest problems with vet school is that our professors have little, or no, pedagogical training. So, while they’re by and large brilliant, interesting, nice people… a lot of them are terrible teachers. Either they don’t get how to organize a lecture, or they don’t do a good job of conveying the information they want us to know, or they’ll say things like “just do the clinically relevant stuff!” while as 2nd years we don’t have the experience yet to determine what’s relevant and what’s not, or they’ll not be any good at writing questions that evaluate what we learned.

Recently in our infectious disease class, the professor said “I’m terrible at writing test questions!”He’s known this for quite some time, and received many complaints about, but as far as I can tell, he hasn’t done anything to change it. I know that writing good questions is hard, but a big part of teaching is being able to write evaluations that accurately reflect how well the students learned!

April Fool’s Day

Overall, I had a very low-key April Fool’s Day. But the one prank I was privy to was hilarious!

In my 8AM surgery class, the professor came in and said that due to historically bad attendance in the second half of the course, the course coordinator had given her permission to administer the points for her section on the exam as a pop quiz. We all kind of nod and pull out some paper to write down our answers.

Then she puts up the first question and it’s really hard. We aren’t sure of the answer and are starting to sweat.

She puts up the second and it’s just mystifying. We have no idea! We didn’t talk about that!

She puts up the third question and it’s impossible. It’s something that might show up on the board exam to become a surgical specialist.

By then, I figure it out but most of my classmates are still panicking.

She puts up the last question and it’s just so impossible it’s hilarious.

Then she asked us what day it was, and you could just see the realization dawn on all of us.

We applauded.

Funny/Interesting Things Professors Say #3

Professor quotes

Pathology
“I did brush my teeth this morning… so…”
“some student have described it as nuclear spooning.”
“Cats look different anyway… they’re like little horses in miniature. No, really, they have a lot of similarities!”
“transmissible venereal tumors can be present anywhere dogs like to touch their nose or do the nasty.”
“this is in species that love to contract their spleens”
“Platelets are sensitive little guys. You talk to them ugly and they get agitated and aggregate.”


Infectious Diseases
“Good guess! I mean, good answer.”



Toxicology
“I would think if you have an upset stomach, you wouldn’t want to take strychnine.”
“I don’t know how you guys are going to finish a major exam in 50 minutes…”
“those big planes have a glide path about like a rock.”
“obviously children don’t lick it off.”
“He should have been shot between the eyes… or slid down a 40 foot razor blade into a barrel of turpentine.”
“Most people don’t read the damn label, just like most people don’t read the damn instructions.”


Surgery
“The single, lone ranger, advantage…”
“Silk… oh! Bad, bad boy! Wicked! Evil!”
“The angels sing when we start talking about Surgilene”
“If anybody says “I’m going to sew this back together” I’m going to jump them and wrestle them to the ground.”
“placing 45 simple interrupted sutures is a real buzz kill.”
“this is part where I feel like I need to interpret through dance or something”


Public Health
“I’m going to try to make this not boring… this could be hard.”

Surgery!

I’m really excited to be starting Surgery class. Granted, this semester we won’t actually get to cut anything. (I don’t think.)

But we do start learning the best way to hold our instruments. And the best way to organize and sterilize a surgery pack. And the best kinds of sutures to use. And how to tie sutures. Basically, we learn all the stuff you need to know to be a surgeon!

I have the added issue of being left handed, which is only problematic in that right now, all my tools are right handed. I’m going to be spending this semester deciding which ones I want to sink the money into ordering in left handed. Surgery tools are expensive enough; they’re even more expensive left handed.

I hope I can keep the multitude of similar, but slightly different, scissors straight!

We finally get to pick classes!

After 2 years of having our schedules completely out of our hands, we finally have some freedom to choose. (Granted, there are 19 hours of required class in the Fall and 16 hours of required class in the Spring.)

Honestly, it's a little overwhelming! There are 63 options, and we have to narrow that done to a minimum of 14 and a maximum of 20 or so.

Then there's fact that we aren't guranteed to get any of the classes that we want. They assign us to classes based on request and then lottery.

So, my current plans are:

Emergency Response and Management (which has 130 slots, so I'll definitely get it)

Primate Medicine (25 slots, but I assume not a lot of interest)

Animal Models of Human Disease (10 slots, but probably not a lot of interest)

Interactive Emergency and Critical Care Small Animal Cases (30 slots)
OR
Contemporary Issues in Animal Welfare (second choice in that time slot, also 30 slots)

Small Animal Endocrinology: Problem Solving (8 slots)
OR
Diagnostic Cytology Topics (second choice, 40 slots)

Small Animal Dentistry (30 slots, who knows if I'll get it! I'm signing up for this one in 2 slots, in hopes one will come through)

Small Animal Cardiology (130 slots)

Food Animal Advanced Elective (130 slots- good for boards)

Clinical Lab Animal Medicine (5 slots, I assume not a lot of other interest)

Resolving Small Animal Behavior Problems (130 slots)

Common Complaints (8 slots, everyone wants it... so, we'll see!)
OR
Physical Medicine, Rehab, Pain Management, Alternative/Complementary Medicine (16 slots)

Small Animal Oncology (100 slots)
OR
Diagnostic Lab (6 slots)
OR
Physical Medicine, etc (16 slots)

Feline Medicine (80 slots, but it fills up every year!)

Regulatory Issues: Update for the Practitioner (80 slots. I'm not excited about this one, but it's important for being accredited/licensed as a vet. It's more important for large animal people for health certificate stuff, but it's important for rabies vaccine administration in some states and I don't know where I'm going to end up.)

Small Animal Gastroenterology (130 slots)

Small Animal Nutrition (65 slots)

Emergency Medicine (130 slots. Everyone can take this one. Dr. Bailey teaches it 6 times a year.)

There is a Ton of Toxicology

I’m a little overwhelmed with the amount of information we’re expected to know about toxicology. We just started this class halfway through the semester (it started after pharmacology ended.) And, wow! We thought we had to know a lot about pharmacology (drug names, mechanisms of action, significant side effects, contraindications, general category of disease affected) but toxicology seems like so much more!

Both classes do weekly quizzes (I think mostly to force us to keep up with the information.) In pharmacology, each quiz would cover maybe 3-4 pages of the notes that I make from lecture. In toxicology, the first quiz covers 20 pages of condensed information (and 60 of the note set, which is about 600 powerpoint slides of information!)

I’m trying to keep about 15 heavy metals and 10 pesticides straight (for just this quiz!) with respect to names, forms, pathogenesis, organ system most affected, animal most affected, lesions and treatment.

It’s just a lot of information!

Antimicrobial Resistance

I’ll try not to get too much on a soapbox here, but I feel very strongly about the antimicrobial use in livestock debates that are raging right now.

The gist of the argument from people like the Infectious Disease Society of America and Katie Couric is that livestock producers are using antibiotics willy-nilly in their livestock and that this is contributing to antibiotic resistances that we’re seeing in human medicine.

I have several problems with this assertion. For one, I don’t think that livestock producers are using antibiotics willy-nilly. It isn’t in their economic best interest to do so! They have narrow profit margins on a per animal basis, so they tend to only treat when there’s some kind of economic benefit. The argument they make back here is that “growth promotant” antibiotics are used to treat subclinical protozoal parasite infections. My response to that is that is a subclinical infection and the animals are healthier without the parasites.

For two, why are they so uptight about antibiotic use in animals? Have they looked at the use of antibiotics in human medicine lately? Most doctors throw antibiotics at people when they come in for the sniffles. Also, most people don’t complete their antibiotic courses. So, my general feeling here is that while veterinarians do probably need to clean up their act with regards to prudent use of antibiotics, those human medicine folk need to clean their own house before they complain about our dusting.

Spring Break is Over!

We went on a cruise and it was awesome!

The vet school blogging will start back up tomorrow!

Spring Break!

Today marks the beginning of Spring Break!

I'm heading off on a cruise, so the posting will start back up next week.

Club Lectures

One of the coolest things about vet school is the extra-curricular activities. I really love going to the lunch and dinner meetings hosted by various clubs. Mostly I’m in clubs that apply directly to my interests (AAFP for cats, LAM for lab animals, ACVIM for internal medicine), but I enjoy going to meetings when other clubs host meeting that they invite everyone to.

Tonight’s meeting was hosted by SFT (The Society for Theriogenology) and the speaker was the guy who does artificial insemination for Sea World. The lecture has been awesome.

The procedures they do are so cool. There are neat pictures of dolphins and baby dolphins and orcas and baby orcas. (Baby marine mammals are so cute!) The speaker is hilarious! (Or, maybe, it’s so funny because even vet students aren’t immune to the reflexive giggle when somebody says “penis.”)

My favorite quote of the evening: “The last killer whale I got pregnant…… Never mind. Moving on…”

After a long hiatus

Hello there, internet-world. I've been away a while! School got very time consuming (no surprises there, I'm sure!)

However, I'm back and intending to post at least 3 times a week from here on out!

Vet school gives me plenty to talk about.