Class of 2015... How ya doing?

Veterinary Science Graduate Certificate from UofI
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scb44f said:
When I came home crying, looking for support, I was told something along the lines of "suck it up, it's just a cow".
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Not cool. :mad: I would be livid if anyone said that. I love cows. They have every bit as much personality as dogs (and more than some dogs I've met).
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Sorry, @scb44f , I hope things smooth out soon. :(

I survived my month of dentistry and exotics. Both services were a little crazy and involved very little sleep. They were both also areas that aren't big interests to me and so it wasn't my favorite month ever. Now, I'm on anesthesia - which is great since the service staff and doctors are fantastic but mostly great because I get to be in the OR seeing amazing surgeries in between keeping my patients asleep and doing what they should. Makes me a bit sad that I don't have the numbers on paper to be a surgeon but I'm becoming better at accepting that ;)

Time is going by so so so quickly!!
 
heylodeb said:
Sorry, @scb44f , I hope things smooth out soon. :(

I survived my month of dentistry and exotics. Both services were a little crazy and involved very little sleep. They were both also areas that aren't big interests to me and so it wasn't my favorite month ever. Now, I'm on anesthesia - which is great since the service staff and doctors are fantastic but mostly great because I get to be in the OR seeing amazing surgeries in between keeping my patients asleep and doing what they should. Makes me a bit sad that I don't have the numbers on paper to be a surgeon but I'm becoming better at accepting that ;)

Time is going by so so so quickly!!
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I'm in anesthesia too:) seen some awesome stuff.

Don't let the numbers hold you back, if that's really your interest!
 
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And you can always surgerize in GP!
 
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that redhead said:
I'm in anesthesia too:) seen some awesome stuff.
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One of the highlights of my anesthesia rotation was getting an alpaca as my last case. Four of us on rotation - 3 mixed animal trackers, and me the small animal guy. Made me giggle. Intubating those guys (alpacas) is an interesting experience.

BTW, free tip: Alpacas must metabolize cisatracurium like nobody else's business.
 
LetItSnow said:
One of the highlights of my anesthesia rotation was getting an alpaca as my last case. Four of us on rotation - 3 mixed animal trackers, and me the small animal guy. Made me giggle. Intubating those guys (alpacas) is an interesting experience.

BTW, free tip: Alpacas must metabolize cisatracurium like nobody else's business.
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Jealous. We don't actually get to do much with the large animal anesthesias and I haven't be involved at all (one boarded anesthesiologist and a tech do it all over there). We can watch and maybe do a thing or two, but not the whole shebang like with the cats and dogs. I completely understand (in one block, the student left the ketamine behind and the horse started moving around...) but I wish we'd get to see at least a few.
 
that redhead said:
Jealous. We don't actually get to do much with the large animal anesthesias and I haven't be involved at all (one boarded anesthesiologist and a tech do it all over there). We can watch and maybe do a thing or two, but not the whole shebang like with the cats and dogs. I completely understand (in one block, the student left the ketamine behind and the horse started moving around...) but I wish we'd get to see at least a few.
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Put it in your evaluation. The rotation is "Anesthesia", not "Anesthesia of Companion Animals". I'd assumed we'd be involved in the LA stuff at least a little.
 
Coquette22 said:
Put it in your evaluation. The rotation is "Anesthesia", not "Anesthesia of Companion Animals". I'd assumed we'd be involved in the LA stuff at least a little.
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I imagine it has to do with the case load, but there was only one horse that I saw go through so far and I can't imagine that's all that's been through for the med/surg people. Dr. C said she'd try and get people with LA interest (I would include myself in that group) over to see some stuff but with the number of dogs and cats we've been seeing (and the apparently minimal LA caseload) it's just not happened.
 
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that redhead said:
Jealous. We don't actually get to do much with the large animal anesthesias and I haven't be involved at all (one boarded anesthesiologist and a tech do it all over there). We can watch and maybe do a thing or two, but not the whole shebang like with the cats and dogs. I completely understand (in one block, the student left the ketamine behind and the horse started moving around...) but I wish we'd get to see at least a few.
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seems pretty similar to NCSU. they also seemed to put students on the more "routine" companion animal stuff and not so much the crazy procedure stuff like a lot of my classmates were doing at other schools. :shrug:
 
jmo1012 said:
seems pretty similar to NCSU. they also seemed to put students on the more "routine" companion animal stuff and not so much the crazy procedure stuff like a lot of my classmates were doing at other schools. :shrug:
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Every companion animal case that comes through is assigned to a student, no matter its difficulty or wackiness. It seems like all we've had is crazy stuff. There have been maybe three electives (OHE or neuter) the past two weeks and of those, only one was truly just an elective neuter; the others were all somehow complicated. Lots of "regular" ortho stuff (which still managed to go awry in various ways), some wild ones (pace maker, sternal-approach exploratory thoracotomy) and a bunch of ASA IIIs. It stresses me the hell out but it's definitely a confidence builder and makes you feel good about yourself when you manage to get your adrenals back under control :laugh:
 
Our rotation did a bit of everything, but there was a student on every case. So colics and arthroscopies in horses, a couple goat surgeries, and all the small animal stuff - a couple spays but tons of LDAs, MRIs and CTs, a few TPLOs and the like, and even the crazier things like nephrectomies (two in a row!), gunshot wounds, and shunt repairs.
 
that redhead said:
Every companion animal case that comes through is assigned to a student, no matter its difficulty or wackiness. It seems like all we've had is crazy stuff. There have been maybe three electives (OHE or neuter) the past two weeks and of those, only one was truly just an elective neuter; the others were all somehow complicated. Lots of "regular" ortho stuff (which still managed to go awry in various ways), some wild ones (pace maker, sternal-approach exploratory thoracotomy) and a bunch of ASA IIIs. It stresses me the hell out but it's definitely a confidence builder and makes you feel good about yourself when you manage to get your adrenals back under control :laugh:
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most of my stuff was ASA II or III, but i guess only a couple of the cases were anesthetically complicated for me. we dont do spays and castrations at the specialty complex (no client ones done period, and the faculty/staff/student ones are done through general health and wellness which runs separately from anesthesia). we only have a few students on the rotation at a time so most cases didnt have a student assigned to them. i think i was bummed i didnt get to do more critical care patients (because we always had a dr or tech with us) because i found that to be a lot of fun
 
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jmo1012 said:
seems pretty similar to NCSU. they also seemed to put students on the more "routine" companion animal stuff and not so much the crazy procedure stuff like a lot of my classmates were doing at other schools. :shrug:
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I felt like they just gave us whatever..... I mean, it's not like they're going to let us pick some assinine protocol, but I worked up the alpaca, picked my anesthesia protocol, did all the pre-med, induction, intubation, etc.

They seemed pretty good here about giving us enough rope to hang ourselves, but not so much that it puts a patient at risk - there was always a tech or anesthesiologist checking on us and giving some guidance. Or just plain making decisions if we floundered with a difficult patient.

I don't think I had anything other than ASA II-III-IV cases. Definitely no ASA I cases. We do have ASA I cases (particularly through our GP and Dentistry services), but I never saw any of them. I lucked out on my on-call nights and never had any ASA V cases either; my only on-call cases were ASA III and urgent for other reasons (back dogs, etc.).

But regardless, I felt like they didn't really hold back on the cases they gave us. We don't have a student on every case because there's only four students, and because our morning teaching rounds would mean holding up surgery until too late in the day, but I didn't get the sense that they 'protected' us from difficult cases. My first case was actually my most sick animal (and it ended up dying 4-5 days later in ICU).

I really thought our anesthesia rotation was structured super well. Morning case rounds where you present your cases and anesthesia plans to the clinician, who signs off on the protocol you picked. Then teaching rounds. Then work cases the rest of the day. Rinse, lather, repeat.

I liked that they encouraged us to try different things. There were a number of times my clinician said "Well, I'm not sure I'd do it that way, but it's not going to hurt the animal so sure, give it a shot." I'm really, really familiar with ace-opioid premed and ket-val for induction because that's what they use for just about everything at the clinic I've spent most of my time at. So I focused on using a variety of other approaches. I tended to stay away from things like etomidate, though - while it obviously has a very useful purpose in, say, a cardiovascular-compromised patient, the fact is I'm probably not going to ever see a bottle out in private practice. I tried to balance "new to me" combinations with "practical and likely to use in 'real life'".
 
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LetItSnow said:
I liked that they encouraged us to try different things. There were a number of times my clinician said "Well, I'm not sure I'd do it that way, but it's not going to hurt the animal so sure, give it a shot." I'm really, really familiar with ace-opioid premed and ket-val for induction because that's what they use for just about everything at the clinic I've spent most of my time at. So I focused on using a variety of other approaches. I tended to stay away from things like etomidate, though - while it obviously has a very useful purpose in, say, a cardiovascular-compromised patient, the fact is I'm probably not going to ever see a bottle out in private practice. I tried to balance "new to me" combinations with "practical and likely to use in 'real life'".
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In regards to protocol, our clinician told us on the first day something like, "If it isn't going to harm the patient, I'm going to say okay (for drugs, doses, etc)". I should really do a ket/val induction because we have alphaxalone up here (no Telazol) in Canada and it's fantastic so I don't want to use anything else, haha. We did do one thiopental induction and I did one propofol induction (a couple others on the rotation, as well) but alphaxalone is just magical.

We've done a few different pre-med protocols but I just like ace+opioid. I did a dexmedetomidine + opioid today on a myelogram dog and while he was pretty bradycardic, his pressures stayed good. (Panic moment when the contrast when in and his heart was like "'kay thanks for the good time, bye!" :uhno:) Definitely nice to get to try some different stuff out.

What was your pre-med for the alpaca?
 
that redhead said:
What was your pre-med for the alpaca?
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I intentionally avoided an alpha-2 as part of my pre-med/induction protocol because, well... *shrug*. In the limited time I had, it was difficult to find *reliable* information. There's all sorts of "Dave's Guide To Large Animal Anesthesia - and this probably works in camelids too" kind of stuff out there, but ..... So what I did is search our hospital records for every case of an Alpaca undergoing general anesthesia. Turns out about half of them used an alpha-2 and the other half didn't.

So I went with simple drugs I know well: diazepam+morphine for premed, propofol for induction. Worked just great. He cushed nicely with the pre-med and induced easily with the propofol. Intubation was nowhere NEAR the challenge everyone kept warning me it would be. Xylazine probably would be just fantastic, but I'm not all that familiar with it.

I also had him on a ketamine+morphine CRI for pain. I would have done lidocaine for a full MLK mix, but I couldn't really find much out about the use of lidocaine in camelids for analgesia that I felt was trustworthy.

Used cisatricurium for NMB, but frankly, he seemed to brush it off *WAY* quicker than he should have.

I'm sure the info is out there for camelids .... I just didn't have a lot of time to do the research.
 
So much learns right now. I love it!
 
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My biggest experience with xylazine is horses. All horses get xylazine. It's like the go to short acting sedative for them. I only just learned the wonders of ketamine during my external a few weeks ago. Ketamine + normal hyperactive ferret = ferret playing dead. It was brilliant.

Molecular biology was awesome, I'm sad it was only a week but glad that I can go back later to keep my hand in it and learn more. I had a chit-chat with an incoming first year that I sold an anatomy textbook too. I made her swear not to read any of it until the first day of school. And then several of my classmates and I gave her a quick pep talk on "How to do as little work as possible and still make it to fourth year." I'm pretty sure she thinks we're all huge slackers now. :D
 
That slightly awkward moment when you realize you're applying to a bunch of the same programs as your very good friend. (Note - it's not redhead. She and I have a north/south divide going on.)
 
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Radiology isn't my favorite rotation but it's not quite so terrible as I imagined it would be.

The huzz comes to visit in a little less than two weeks time and I can't wait. Hopefully it gets me in a good mindset to start companion animal surgery, where the course coordinator told me, "I make people cry." :thumbup:
 
that redhead said:
The huzz comes to visit in a little less than two weeks time and I can't wait. Hopefully it gets me in a good mindset to start companion animal surgery, where the course coordinator told me, "I make people cry." :thumbup:
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Is he the coordinator? Damn, I was hoping it was Dr A. I'm kinda liking radiology. Really, the worst part of it so far for me is a certain rotation mate who seems to do nothing but complain. "I hate large animal. I wish we didn't have to learn it. I'm never going to use it, why do we have to learn it? I hate fluid calculations, we never did them at Clinic X, so why do we have to learn it? Why do we do FNA on everything? Dr Y said they were never useful. I hate these types of rads, I hate those types of rads...." STOP IT! :mad: BEFORE I SLAP YOU!
 
Coquette22 said:
Is he the coordinator? Damn, I was hoping it was Dr A. I'm kinda liking radiology. Really, the worst part of it so far for me is a certain rotation mate who seems to do nothing but complain. "I hate large animal. I wish we didn't have to learn it. I'm never going to use it, why do we have to learn it? I hate fluid calculations, we never did them at Clinic X, so why do we have to learn it? Why do we do FNA on everything? Dr Y said they were never useful. I hate these types of rads, I hate those types of rads...." STOP IT! :mad: BEFORE I SLAP YOU!
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FNA is plenty useful. just not as useful as say histopathology. and fluid calculations, too. This person might have a rude awakening soon
 
that redhead said:
Radiology isn't my favorite rotation but it's not quite so terrible as I imagined it would be.

The huzz comes to visit in a little less than two weeks time and I can't wait. Hopefully it gets me in a good mindset to start companion animal surgery, where the course coordinator told me, "I make people cry." :thumbup:
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Yeah. One of our internal medicine residents makes a point of saying that. I heard him say it, and I've heard other people report that he says it. I'm always like "Really? Cause that's not something I'd proudly announce.... it kinda says more about you than the students."

Coquette22 said:
Is he the coordinator? Damn, I was hoping it was Dr A. I'm kinda liking radiology. Really, the worst part of it so far for me is a certain rotation mate who seems to do nothing but complain. "I hate large animal. I wish we didn't have to learn it. I'm never going to use it, why do we have to learn it? I hate fluid calculations, we never did them at Clinic X, so why do we have to learn it? Why do we do FNA on everything? Dr Y said they were never useful. I hate these types of rads, I hate those types of rads...." STOP IT! :mad: BEFORE I SLAP YOU!
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I find that attitude seems to be more common in people who worked as techs/assistants/whatever before vet school. Some of them come in with a mindset of "the way we did it at MY clinic is all I need to know" and they're kinda closed off to anything else. Definitely not everyone who ever worked in a clinic, but there's a subset of peeps like that...
 
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LetItSnow said:
Yeah. One of our internal medicine residents makes a point of saying that. I heard him say it, and I've heard other people report that he says it. I'm always like "Really? Cause that's not something I'd proudly announce.... it kinda says more about you than the students."
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I told him that I don't want to be a surgeon and all I want is to learn something and not cry. So hopefully that helps, because I feel like people that are proud of making others cry like to think that they're squashing little fourth years' hopes and dreams. Maybe if he realizes that I don't give a fuh about ever being a surgeon and he can't crush my dreams, he won't bother? I dunno.

LetItSnow said:
I find that attitude seems to be more common in people who worked as techs/assistants/whatever before vet school. Some of them come in with a mindset of "the way we did it at MY clinic is all I need to know" and they're kinda closed off to anything else. Definitely not everyone who ever worked in a clinic, but there's a subset of peeps like that...
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I agree. I have quite a bit of clinical experience under my belt and I try very, very hard not to say stuff like, "Well at MY clinic, we did THIS". I mean, I know I bring up my experiences (and to some people that's annoying as it is, I guess), but I try to do it in a way that's helpful to whatever we're trying to learn or accomplish.
 
Coquette22 said:
Is he the coordinator? Damn, I was hoping it was Dr A. I'm kinda liking radiology. Really, the worst part of it so far for me is a certain rotation mate who seems to do nothing but complain. "I hate large animal. I wish we didn't have to learn it. I'm never going to use it, why do we have to learn it? I hate fluid calculations, we never did them at Clinic X, so why do we have to learn it? Why do we do FNA on everything? Dr Y said they were never useful. I hate these types of rads, I hate those types of rads...." STOP IT! :mad: BEFORE I SLAP YOU!
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It makes more sense that it would be Dr. A, now that I think of it, but I thought he was leaving soon?
 
that redhead said:
I agree. I have quite a bit of clinical experience under my belt and I try very, very hard not to say stuff like, "Well at MY clinic, we did THIS". I mean, I know I bring up my experiences (and to some people that's annoying as it is, I guess), but I try to do it in a way that's helpful to whatever we're trying to learn or accomplish.
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I don't mind if people make comparisons, but it just seems like it's been constant with her. But I didn't really like her to begin with so maybe I'm just hypersensitive to everything she says.

that redhead said:
It makes more sense that it would be Dr. A, now that I think of it, but I thought he was leaving soon?
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Bugger. I like him and the other Dr A. :(
 
Coquette22 said:
I don't mind if people make comparisons, but it just seems like it's been constant with her. But I didn't really like her to begin with so maybe I'm just hypersensitive to everything she says.



Bugger. I like him and the other Dr A. :(
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Oh I agree totally. I find myself biting my tongue whenever she says those things because one clinic is not representative of the whole profession or even the whole area. Ugh.

And yeah, me too :(
 
Coquette22 said:
So much for "Nothing dies in radiology". :( Lost a very sick wild gannet on the table today.
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:( my friend's cat almost died in radiology when anesthesia gave it a massive sedation OD. thankfully shes a hypervigilant person and noticed immediately that the cat wasnt breathing (this was just a practice lab too, not medically warranted)
 
Well. My husband and I are getting a divorce. I'm on equine surgery right now and then move to the small animal surgeries so at least I'll be busy while all of this legal junk is happening. He has requested I change my last name, so the suggestion box is open..........
 
OMG @scb44f , I am so sorry to hear this. Wow. Didn't y'all just buy a house?! I second dy, if you need anything don't hesitate to reach out!
 
Oh no :( So sorry to hear that. You know we're here if you need a hundred shoulders or so. Hang in there, girl.
 
scb44f said:
Well. My husband and I are getting a divorce. I'm on equine surgery right now and then move to the small animal surgeries so at least I'll be busy while all of this legal junk is happening. He has requested I change my last name, so the suggestion box is open..........
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Would you not take your maiden name back? Otherwise, make up something that works well with "Dr." like Livingston, Jones (okay, I've always secretly wanted to be Indiana Jones..), Who, Danger, Love....

In all seriousness, I can't even imagine dealing with this, in the middle of rotations no less. Take care of yourself :(
 
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jmo1012 said:
:( my friend's cat almost died in radiology when anesthesia gave it a massive sedation OD. thankfully shes a hypervigilant person and noticed immediately that the cat wasnt breathing (this was just a practice lab too, not medically warranted)
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Was this here? Same thing happened with a classmate of mine, curious if it's the same case.

So sorry scb. :c
 
Thanks for the support, everyone. Yeah, we did just buy a house, and while that's really unfortunate, at least we are able to be separate now without worrying about how we are going to split up our stuff, because that part is essentially done. The major thing that sucks is I am still living where we have lived for 3 years and so a lot of things around the house remind me of him, but my new roommate (incoming first year and fellow SDNer) is helping make this transition more smooth.

The name thing is complicated. I do not like my maiden name due to my relationship with my father so that's a whole other can of worms to open up :p Obviously changing my name is not really high priority, but it's something he asked me to think about. This isn't a malicious, hateful ending to our relationship so it's the least I can do to bounce some thoughts around before I decide whether or not I really want to change my name at all.
 
If you change your name before you graduate, your diploma can be printed with your new name. I had a friend who hated her last name. She got married during her last year of vet school and she purposely got married before she graduated so that her new name would be on her vet school diploma. Just something to consider...
 
So sorry to hear about that, scb. What about using your middle name as your last name? My SO's aunt was in your situation- she divorced and did not want to keep her husband's last name but also has a bad relationship with her father and did not want to use her maiden name. She decided to make her middle name her last name. It seemed to work well for her.

OR you could come up with some bada** last nameo_O
 
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Sorry you're going through this tough time, scb
 
scb44f said:
Thanks for the support, everyone. Yeah, we did just buy a house, and while that's really unfortunate, at least we are able to be separate now without worrying about how we are going to split up our stuff, because that part is essentially done. The major thing that sucks is I am still living where we have lived for 3 years and so a lot of things around the house remind me of him, but my new roommate (incoming first year and fellow SDNer) is helping make this transition more smooth.

The name thing is complicated. I do not like my maiden name due to my relationship with my father so that's a whole other can of worms to open up :p Obviously changing my name is not really high priority, but it's something he asked me to think about. This isn't a malicious, hateful ending to our relationship so it's the least I can do to bounce some thoughts around before I decide whether or not I really want to change my name at all.
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Good that it isn't a malicious divorce, but maybe changing to something completely different will give you more of a "fresh start" feeling? I dunno man, that's rough :\
 
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My mom's maiden name would be nice. I have also thought about going with either of my grandma's maiden names, but my brother's first and middle names are already their maiden names so I'm not sure I want to double dip (I already have my mom's name as my middle name lol, but sharing names is definitely fun). I have also thought about going with my late step-grandpa's last name.

About cardio-related names... One of the cardiologists here shares my first name and I have thought about how hilariously awkward it would be if I took his last name :p

And being grilled in rounds and feeling like you failed miserably can be just as disheartening as what I'm going through. I just kept digging and digging my hole on Monday, and was saying wrong things left and right. Just know that tomorrow you will be that much smarter!
 
I don't like the 'mind game' approach to rounds where you get asked a question, you give an answer, and then they go down the route of "are you sure? isn't there any other option? NOTHING else you can think of?" ..... only to eventually come back around to "your first answer was right, I just wanted to test you."

Sigh. C'mon. If my answer was right, use the opportunity for positive reinforcement. Don't make it a negative experience because guaranteed I'm not opening my mouth again after that.

Sorry about life, scb44f. It blows sometimes. :(
 
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