Class of 2016....how ya doing?

Veterinary Science Graduate Certificate from UofI
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Kpowell14 said:
Gravity lounger?? What is this? Lol
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This. So comfy!
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NStarz said:
Definitely making an appointment with a therapist when I get back to Cbus. Having a hard time right now :( Le sigh.
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You are not the only one who didn't get any or much vet experience over the summer and definitely not the only one who hasn't done surgery. I haven't done a surgery (except worked on a cottontail, but it died under anesthesia) and worked at a wildlife center all summer so I got no vet experience at all this summer. Never done an internship or externship. So, you're not the only one and talking to people while volunteering for orientation a lot of others also didn't get experience over the summer. It was our last summer of freedom, I think a lot of people chose to just enjoy it.

I can't believe school starts in 5 days! I haven't even looked at the schedule yet. I just made the final decisions on my electives yesterday. The difference between being a first year and a third year lol. Meeting all the incoming class who are so excited and already have everything planned out (or so they think lol) made the reality that school starts soon sink in a little more.

I'm usually excited for school to start too, but I had such an awesome summer that just flew by and I am really sad that it's over. It was my last summer to rehab as much as I wanted (and I certainly rehabbed a lot- took in 87 creatures on my own and worked full time at the wildlife center in the nursery), but now it's over. The saddest thing is knowing I can't rehab next summer. I've never not rehabbed over a summer and rehabbing is what I do. I've been dreading 3rd year summer since before vet school started and now it's the next summer. We will all get through it, though. Hopefully there will be some baby goats or pigs to get me through the summer :).
 
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I really don't think I can handle sitting in class from 9-6 like everyday this week after being on vacation. And I have the figure out when I'm going to fit the gym in too...
 
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Well I'm glad everyone else is suffering from just ridiculous amounts of sitting, too. Our schedule gets a lot better when we split into labs later in the semester, but right now it's really painful to sit and sit and sit through lecture after lecture. Ugh.
 
Going back today :arghh::( Classes start Monday. Ugh, why is summer so short?

The drive to Charlottetown is going to be long, the guinea pigs are in a crazy mood today.
 
Made it back to Cbus after an unexpected delay. Pick up my surgery pack and textbooks today, notes tomorrow, and then classes start on Wednesday. Crazy.
 
Starting our second week. Have equine cardio lab today. Fingers crossed my crutches don't spook any of the teaching horses. And that I don't slip and fall in horse manure.
 
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We just had another externship planning lecture. Way too stressed out for the first day of class. And the stupid spreadsheet thing confuses me. And there aren't enough weeks for me to do the rotations I want and the externships I need to be guaranteed early entry. Gahhhh.
 
First day of third year tomorrow. We got this, SDNers! We're almost to the finish line :-D
 
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"What a drag it is getting older..." and further along in vet school.
Classes began Monday and I'm vacillating between general ennui and sheer terror at the prospect of doing surgery in the scary land of a vet school lab. How I long for the simple days where biochem and pharm were my biggest fears.
 
First surgery lab tonight (eek!!)--gowning, gloving and scrubbing!!!

Crazy. T to clinics = 8 months...
 
NStarz said:
First surgery lab tonight (eek!!)--gowning, gloving and scrubbing!!!

Crazy. T to clinics = 8 months...
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I had my first surgery lab this morning. It was an intro, nothing too crazy. Our groups are usually 3 people per group but two groups have 4 people. Because my anxiety has been ramped up & I blacked out during the principles of surgery practical last semester I get to be in one of the groups of 4 so it is a little less pressure and more support. I really appreciate the coordinator accommodating me because I really want to do well. It means I get 1 time as primary surgeon instead of 2 but I'm completely fine with that. I just want to make it through the course (and my group & animals to make it, too)
 
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I was excited to go back to school...not anymore. I am so tired! 8-5 is really not working for me anymore.
We are in operative surgery this year (we had principles of surgery last year). We are reviewing asepsis and suture patterns for the first few weeks. After that, we start cadaver surgeries, and finish up with live surgeries at the end of the semester. I am primary surgeon first in my group..I'm terrified.
I got to do rectal palpation on a mare today, which was actually pretty cool considering I am not a horse person. I was kind of dreading therio, but our professor is pretty good and very funny.
We have a meeting next week to start scheduling clinical rotations. I still need to figure out what I want to do for my externals. The small ruminant selective is my number 1 choice right now for internal rotations. Also thinking derm, ophtho, and cardio to cover my bases. I was invited to do a special problems in surgery rotation, so that will be interesting. Clinics start January 5th and I am getting nervous. I am not as excited about clinics as most other people are.
 
I do my surgery in two weeks which is crazy to think about. Supposedly they want us to use hand ties for the pedicles, which means I'm like :eek: cause I don't remember them/feel as confident about them.

And I'm so over this 9-6 thing everyday.
 
On the bright side of life, I didn't have surgery scheduled for today, so I have a four day weekend! Definitely getting real sick of long days that start at 8am.

On the less bright side, I have to clean my whole house today for visiting parents, and I work on Labor day. hmm.
 
4 hours of Repro today. My ability to keep a straight face is declining rapidly...mainly because our professor is super animated and does some great sound effects.
 
I just submitted my preferences for selectives for clinics. Now I just need to figure out where to my externships.
Has anyone sent out any feelers for externships yet? What did you send to the clinic? A letter of intent and resume?
 
psilovethomas said:
I just submitted my preferences for selectives for clinics. Now I just need to figure out where to my externships.
Has anyone sent out any feelers for externships yet? What did you send to the clinic? A letter of intent and resume?
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I emailed them first and asked if they had any availability on specific days. Then if they said they'd have me, I forward whatever material they wanted. I've only had one ask me for a resume. A few others I looked at (mainly academic ones) asked for references, resume/cover letter type stuff, but since I don't know who I'd use for a reference, I ended up not applying. So far I have three booked. Two for this winter during our blocks and then on in July. Working on at least one-two more for my early entry block.
 
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psilovethomas said:
I just submitted my preferences for selectives for clinics. Now I just need to figure out where to my externships.
Has anyone sent out any feelers for externships yet? What did you send to the clinic? A letter of intent and resume?
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I have one externship set up. Their website just said to email them for information about the externship program, so I sent a basic email introducing myself and asking for the information. They sent back information and an application. Emailed them back the application with my priority dates, then they emailed me back with a date that fit their schedule. Was really straightforward.
 
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Really struggling to study for a test I have on Tuesday. And I spay on Wednesday so we need to go in every morning this week and PE/SOAP our dog.
 
orca2011 said:
Yup. They want us to practice our PEs , SOAPs, etc. The only time we don't have to go in during the morning is tomorrow because the dogs aren't at the school yet. Oh and on Friday because the dogs leave Thursday afternoon.
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We just have to start caring for ours on the day of surgery, so Friday for me. Then we have to care for them until they leave, which means through the weekend. I am happy with the set up though, it isn't too bad.
 
DVMDream said:
We just have to start caring for ours on the day of surgery, so Friday for me. Then we have to care for them until they leave, which means through the weekend. I am happy with the set up though, it isn't too bad.
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I don't think it will end up being that bad. The whole surgery group doesn't have to go in every morning, just at least one of us. However, I just realized that our exam is at 8:30 on Tuesday and no one is going to want to go in that morning...
 
orca2011 said:
I don't think it will end up being that bad. The whole surgery group doesn't have to go in every morning, just at least one of us. However, I just realized that our exam is at 8:30 on Tuesday and no one is going to want to go in that morning...
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Might be nice to go in that morning... get some puppy/dog kisses before the exam. :)

(I tend to find that the last 30 minutes before an exam cramming stuff in rarely does any good anyway, at least for me).
 
This week and into next is both awesome and horrid. I have two days of shadowing planned with our exotics service with my favourite of our clinicians, including one day with three bunny spay/neuters (which hopefully will go better than the FOUR HOURS I spent looking endoscopically up a rabbit urethra last Friday...)

But then the week ends with a small animal medicine exam (ahh!) in the afternoon on Friday, after our first surgery of the semester in the morning. I'm surgeon - we learn on Thursday whether it's going to be cat neuters or spay. It's going to be an absolute cluster**** and I seriously doubt I'm going to get much sleep Thursday night. Then we have big exams Monday and Wednesday in classes I just really don't care about, equine and therio. I'm super super behind in equine and ruminant therio just sucks.

/whine whine whine...
 
I am really annoyed with our notes this year. I paid $60 for notes, and yet professors don't seem to care. They submit notes for us, but when I get to class they say things like " oh, the notes are for reference only for when you practice... For my test just study the powerpoints." WTH... I just paid money for notes you aren't even using and now I have to spend time printing powerpoints to take notes on? I should have not paid for notes at the rate it is going so far.

The entire lecture I'm listening to right now is not in the write notes, so I have nothing to take notes on. I'll have to print out the powerpoints and re-listen to the lecture to take notes. There are places in his notes that say things like "insert table x" "insert JAVMA article" which he obviously didn't do before he turned in the notes.
 
Jamr0ckin said:
You'll do great! Just remember to breathe and not lock your knees.
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I think it's the build up of this whole process that is getting to me since I've done spays before (mainly cats). I think I'm more terrified of having boarded surgeons come over and stare at me than the actual procedure.
 
orca2011 said:
I think it's the build up of this whole process that is getting to me since I've done spays before (mainly cats). I think I'm more terrified of having boarded surgeons come over and stare at me than the actual procedure.
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Yes, I understand that. I had a resident stare over my shoulder the entire time. It was nerve-wracking, and I would have been done faster if she wasn't there.
 
I wish they had stared over our shoulders...it was my first surgery ever (aside from one cat testicle...) and they were just kind of like, "'kay, go ahead" and wander off. I felt a lot better when I solo spayed a client cat in a rotation, because it was just me and the surgeon who scrubbed in but just observed. Much less frightening even though it was a client cat!

Good luck on your surgeries :)
 
Hey you surgery peeps

Did anyone not feel all that well when they first started observing surgeries and have later found you're better when you're participating more?

I've always not felt all that well -- haven't fainted or anything, but if I really ignored it I probably would find it going that far at some point.

Problem is, I'm not squeamish about anything that goes on (I like digging around with the best of them) but find this feeling is there even if there's no patient in there yet.

Anyway, just curious. Today's field experience caused this to resurface for me a bit. :)
 
Escalla said:
Hey you surgery peeps

Did anyone not feel all that well when they first started observing surgeries and have later found you're better when you're participating more?

I've always not felt all that well -- haven't fainted or anything, but if I really ignored it I probably would find it going that far at some point.

Problem is, I'm not squeamish about anything that goes on (I like digging around with the best of them) but find this feeling is there even if there's no patient in there yet.

Anyway, just curious. Today's field experience caused this to resurface for me a bit. :)
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This is me. Not so much with surgeries, but I'm weird about IV catheters (I have felt faint at some surgeries though). And I nearly fainted in rounds one morning. I have crappy blood pressure to start with so my threshold before I start to feel dizzy is pretty low. But I've never had issues when I'm actually doing something. I can place catheters, do biopsies, do surgery, etc with no problems.
 
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I have more of an issue with overheating during surgery than anything else. In every day life I'm always the cold one, but between being gowned up, Bair huggers on boost, the heat of the surgery lights, and the stress of being the surgeon, I had to step back and cool down because I was dizzy twice during 3rd year surgery. So far so good for 4th year.
 
Well, I survived and my dog is doing well so far. It was a bit stressful and I felt like I kept making little mistakes that I shouldn't have been making but nothing was major/life threatening. I also actually think I would have preferred if a resident/surgeon was just standing over me and jumping in when needed. The set up was similar to what you had @that redhead, so I felt like there was a lot of waiting in between the points where I needed them to check what I had just completed before moving on to the next step.

I was also super nervous about passing out from overheating. It was definitely warm in there but I luckily didn't get dizzy. My back is killing me though and I think have a tension headache from stressing myself out.
 
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orca2011 said:
My back is killing me though
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Tip a vet gave me once when I was scrubbed in and helping with surgery. Provided you are gowned and the drape is over the edge of the surgery table, you should be able to stand right up to the table with your belly basically touching the table. It helps to keep you standing up straight while doing/assisting with surgery. I was told any amount of "slouching/hunching" no matter how small while doing surgery will kill your back really quickly. Anyway, hopefully that is something you can do/think about. :)
 
DVMDream said:
Tip a vet gave me once when I was scrubbed in and helping with surgery. Provided you are gowned and the drape is over the edge of the surgery table, you should be able to stand right up to the table with your belly basically touching the table. It helps to keep you standing up straight while doing/assisting with surgery. I was told any amount of "slouching/hunching" no matter how small while doing surgery will kill your back really quickly. Anyway, hopefully that is something you can do/think about. :)
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I think I was doing that for a good bit...I have a crappy lower back (swayed) and bad arches so I'm sure they're a contributing factor. Also I need new shoes for standing for long periods. But definitely something I'll make a conscious effort of doing when I'm gowned up.
 
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