Tag Archives: vetschool

The Mane Event

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The MANE event! Get it? ha! (It’s probably too late at night to be writing for the public eye…)

After a week “off” for research my group headed back to the equine hospital for our External Equine Rotation. This rotation was meant to be like a ‘general practice horse vet’ but we actually only spent one day driving around to farms to look at horses.

On the first day of the week we used a teaching horse from the university herd and did a practice ‘Pre-Purchase Exam’ on her. This is a special type of physical exam that veterinarians can do on an animal (typically horses or breeding animals) if someone is interested in buying it. There can be a lot of legal implications surrounding these exams– disclosure of medical information, high value of animals, suspected performance status. As a veterinarian you need to know the full extent of your role in this situation. During our exam of the teaching horse we detected some lameness so we took some radiographs of her leg. I have taken many x-rays on cats and dogs but never on horses. It is very difficult to know exactly how to position the horse for x-rays and where to position the machine in order to get the best pictures. This is something I will likely need a lot more practice with if I end up seeing some horses in practice.

Horses have this weird anatomical structure called ‘guttural pouches’ inside their heads. They are a common site of infection in horses so it is important to examine them.   I got a chance to practice driving the scope again. I really like this—its the only “video game” I enjoy.

On Wednesday, my wish came true! The main event! I finally got to see a colic surgery, and not just one, but two!! The horses went into surgery right after each other. I was able to stay on the “dirty side” of the surgery (I didn’t scrub in and work on the “sterile side”) and help out with an impaction colic.  This involves getting rid of all the excessive food material in the horse’s gut that is unable to move through. This was so cool! The second colic surgery was a different kind of colic—this horse had a twist in his intestines.  Can you imagine how painful it would be if your intestines twisted up on themselves? I am so glad that I finally got to see colic surgeries before I finished my equine rotations and be involved in helping these animals recover!

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This is just before the surgeons will open the gut to remove the impacted feed material

We worked with another teaching horse from the university herd and practiced placing bandages on his limbs. I much prefer practicing on live animals instead of models or cadaver legs–it is a much more real experience and there is a lot of factors that you learn to deal with i.e: windy day, muddy feet, how to pick up a foot on a horse that doesn’t like his feet being picked up, etc.

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I know this isn’t a limb, but can we all just take a moment to appreciate how great this vet wrap is?!

We also practiced nasogastric tubing (NGT)  horses. This is a really common procedure veterinarians can do to provide a horse with fluids, medications, or decompress a stomach during colic!  It is important to make sure that you put the tube in the stomach of the horse and not the lungs! Quite often we pour fluids down the NGT and we really don’t want to be pouring fluid into the horses lungs.  The way a horse’s larynx & pharynx is placed inside it’s head means that by flexing a horse’s neck downwards while we insert the tube (through the nose) the horse will swallow the tube into the esophagus (where we want it to go!).  You can smell stomach smells from the tube (surprisingly not as bad as you would think…) and hear the stomach bubbling away (a fancy medical version of the game ‘telephone’).

Everyone looks forward to the ambulatory day of this rotation. We drove out to meet one of our wackiest professors for a day of horse vetting in the field! It was a very relaxed day, seeing and chatting about a variety of patients. None of the patients were very sick and it was a pleasant day. We preformed a Caslick procedure, a mini-neurological exam on a mini horse, did some more guttural pouch scoping, and had a lot more fun! Our lunch on this day was legendary! An extremely lovely family made us a feast and I experienced the best date scones I’ve ever eaten…

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Me and two of my group mates with our horse vet professor! There was a huge sunflower field just outside one of our appointments.

On the last day of the week we gave a presentation that we had prepared and spoke about our ambulatory cases. Our last practical class this week was on a life-size model horse. We practiced rectal palpation–it is SO important to know the anatomy of a horse (or cow) so that you know what you are feeling (because you can’t see what you are feeling). You can make a lot of diagnoses this way, so the practice was appreciated!

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My group isn’t going to leave any rotation without some great baking!

 

Thanks again to the equine team for a wonderful week! We had a blast 🙂

Poutine, Emus, and Study Days

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I very much admire the vet students who have managed to create regular blog posts throughout their semesters. I thought my second year was busy but my third year must have been busier because here I am writing my first blog post in over 6 months.

We have just finished our third year of classes and this only further confirmed how fast time can fly. Here is a quick run down of some of the most exciting/important things from the last few months:

I spent Canada day in Melbourne this year. Sometimes the weather in July here really makes ‘Christmas in July’ feel possible. Its often very rainy and windy. So I donned my Canada toque, met up with my cousin and one of my closest friends ( who thinks he is Canadian, but he’s not), and we ventured off for a day of fun. Its not my ideal Canada day–usually I look forward to some sunshine, a bit of dirt on my feet, and an escape from the city. This year we started the day off at a nearby pub. We had a maple imperial stout which was actually amazing…. but had a scarily high percentage! We may have also had two different kinds of poutine. Once we found out that not everyone was sure what a zamboni was we headed to the very busy skating rink in town to see if we had retained any skating skills. The next bar had ceasers…. disappointing…very disappointing. Federation Square was set up with red and white lights, Canadian flags, and a few spots of fake snow! We ended the night at the last bar which was a huge party with Tim Horton’s espresso martinis, life size cut outs of Justin Bieber, fooseball, plaid, and non-stop Canadian tracts. Oh… and more poutine.

Never thought I could ever be snow deprived. But it happened, I got very excited about some of the worst snow I have ever seen!
Did you know you can’t actually buy cheese curds in Melbourne? The bar manager had to make his own!!!

We had a very exciting week in August.  We had our White Coat Ceremony at which we were all presented with our doctors coats. I was very blessed to have a family member— my cousin (who is currently living in AUS) at the ceremony. This day signaled our official transition from pre-clinical study (lectures and textbooks and exams) to clinical studies (working in hospitals, hands-on, practical assessments).

Then a few days later I got to wear that shiny new coat to complete one of my first surgeries. My roommate and I worked together to spay a lovely greyhound–who happened to be my other roommate’s dog! The surgery went very well and we still see the dog often which is so nice! I was much less nervous for this surgery than my last one which was very refreshing! We had multiple papers to read, videos to watch, and a tutorial on medical models the week beforehand.

On my spring break I planned a quick camping trip out to the Grampians for 2 nights!  I’ve been wanting to camp in this park since my first year in Australia. Other than an annoying detour  the trip was fantastic. We went hiking both days, wandered the town, stopped for ice cream, hid from the rain, and saw kangaroos, an echidna, and even emus! How crazy is it that I am seeing WILD EMUS. I would love to come back to the Grampians for a week in the summer and do more hikes and hopefully find a couple of swimming holes.

Another very cool thing I did this past semester was participate in a 1 day large animal emergency rescue course. We mostly talked about horses but the techniques are applicable to cattle and other large livestock animals. The day was a mix of lectures and hands on. We learned how to make our own darts for medication, how to organize and run an emergency incident site, and practiced safely restraining horses from a variety of difficult situations.  They day concluded by rescuing a (model) horse from a dam.

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‘Bruce’ the model horse, just moments after our team coordinated his recovery from the dam

And finally, my last exam period. We had 6 finals this time. These are my classes:

  1. Cats & Dogs
  2. Principles of Professional Practice
  3. Horses
  4. Cattle
  5. Small Ruminants (mostly sheep and goats… with a few llamas and deer thrown in)
  6. Birds

(How cool is that!?)

At the University of Melbourne we have 1 week off before the exams begin. My alarm went off at 7am every morning and I used a timer to keep myself focused during the long hours and days. Finals were just as enjoyable as usual…..but with that I’m done my 7th year of university and am looking forward to the final year in my vet school journey.

Next year will be all placements and rotations. I get to book some of them myself–at practices that I am interested in working at or curious about the cases. The other rotations are administered by the university. I have a lot of high expectations for next year. I expect it to be challenging, exciting, and quite a growing experience.

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I have a new study buddy. She showed up most mornings at about 7:30am to sleep on my bed until she headed downstairs for dinner around 5pm.

8 steps to having a good first year in vet

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With the end of my first year of veterinary medicine finally coming to a close it seemed fitting to share 8 steps I used to help me have the best first year of vet school!

Don’t work too hard 

  • Hard work is amazing. Never run away from hard work; you get out of it what you put into it. You’ll need to study, memorize, practice, learn every day in vet school. But I hear classes only get harder and the schedule gets busier, so don’t destroy yourself in first year trying to keep up.

 

Make sure you make good friends with lots of people

  • One day these friends will turn into co-workers! For right now they are study buddies, best friends, network contacts, etc. University days are supposed to be the best days of your life–and good friends help with that!

Get involved with clubs, exec, off campus activities

  • This was something I did in my undergrad degree and it generated a lot of favourite memories. Becoming a part of a club or team will allow you to get to know people better and make more friends. I also found it really important to have friends outside of vet.

Get to know your profs quickly

  • Believe me, this will help when it comes to networking or studying, or feeling like you belong. You can be friends with your profs! If a professor knows who you are they will better be able to answer questions or frustrations you may send them while studying; they’ll also be more willing to offer up industry contacts or experience.

 

Don’t share your grades with friends

  • This might not be helpful for you, but for me–I’m ridiculously competitive. By not sharing my grades with other people I’m keeping my stress levels down. I’m working hard on studying, getting grades that I’m satisfied with and not constantly trying to outdo everyone just for the fun of it (this has made for a much more relaxing school year).

 

Change your study habits

  • I have found that there is a lot of students who have entered vet without an appropriate study technique. These students definitely need to speak to other classmates and professors to find the best way to learn material. I was confident in my study habits, but I changed some of them up for something new —it gets a bit boring when you’ve been studying the same way for 5 or 6 years. It is also important to recognize that different classes may need to be studied for in different ways. Example: class A would be great to learn via flash cards; class B would be great to learn via straight memorization; class C would be great to learn by drawing out flow charts, time-lines, and summaries.

Keep your doors open

  • So many students come in to vet knowing that they want to do cats and dogs or large animals. (Right now I want to do large animals when I graduate!) However, I think that everyone should embrace the wide range of knowledge and opportunities gifted to us in school. Try and learn about all animals and don’t discount something because you do not believe you’ll ever work in that field. The amount of vets who graduated and then completely changed their area of interest is huge!

 

Never forget where you are!

  • In case you didn’t notice: YOU ARE IN VET SCHOOL. How hard was it to get here? How long have you been working for this? Would you want to do anything else with your life? When exams and papers and lower grades feel like they are piling up just remember that one day you’ll be a doctor (and that is a HUGE accomplishment)!

Last Day of DVM1

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WOW! I love vet school so much! Today was simply amazing, not because it was my last day of lectures—but because of all the fun and interesting things that happened:

I came in before my class to help my roommate with a bake sale she planned to raise funds for the Australian Rhino Project. We baked 300 cupcakes and decorated them all and then sold them in front of the student’s union building. All of the proceeds are going to the Aus Rhino Project who is working to bring a breeding herd of rhinos to Aus as a conservation measure. There will be 80 rhinos brought over in the next 3 years. The bake sale was an idea inspired after listening to a completely engaging and terrifying lecture on the future of rhinos in Africa (and how close they drift towards extinction).

Save the rhinos! Buy a cupcake!

Save the rhinos! Buy a cupcake!

I left the bake sale to go to a case study. This year we have 2 to 3 case studies a week (one for each class) that works to bring a lot of the learned concepts together. This case study was HUGE! It was complicated. And I understood…most of it…. (I might have to go home and review my notes again). The class worked through a dog that was brought into the clinic after being hit by a car. After looking at physical exam results, radiographs, ultrasounds, and blood gas analysis we determined that the dog had a pneumothorax and a uroabdomen.

Next was a practical class where we watched our professor artificially inflate a pair of sheep lungs to demonstrate ventilation/perfusion matching, pneumothorax, atelectasis, etc. It was very cool to see this instead of just reading about it.

Then I caught a quick tram ride to Melbourne Zoo where Zoos Victoria was hosting a Zoo Conservation Ethics/Welfare Q&A lecture with Jenny Gray and Peter Sandoe. The discussion was HUGELY stimulating, intellectually diverse, and even heated at times. We raised many complicated questions of best methods for zoos to work in conservation, culling, public education, and how to categorize zoo animals (are they wild animals? domesticated? tamed? companions?). By the end of 2 hours my brain was exhausted— but I couldn’t have asked for a better way to end my first year of DVM!! I can’t wait to see what my last day of DVM2 looks like 🙂

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Now excuse me while I go hermit away and study for finals!