Class of 2016....how ya doing?

Veterinary Science Graduate Certificate from UofI
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orca2011 said:
Can't decide if I want to give up my vacation in the spring to take Neuro. I really want to take it, but then my only vacation after Christmas until I graduate is the the week immediately after. For the most part, my rotations in this part of the year seem to be a little easier (or so I've heard) and have less hours, so I'm leaning towards it, but also worried about just wanting a break.
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I would go ahead and take neuro. I've gone end of January and finish April 19th without a break, but I get time off before graduation and time off before starting work (which should be pretty universal provided your place of employment is even the littlest bit flexible). So you should be able to wrangle a break in there at some point before heading off to the real world.
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I went from September until now without a vacation except for about a week off at the holidays. I used some of my time early in the year to visit internship and residency places. I have the last couple weeks of school off and it's going to be nice to be done soon. Some days going so long without a break sucked, but those days were not the majority and I don't regret the way I used my breaks. I think the occasional rotation with minimal evening and weekend duties really helped break up the long weeks of surgery, IM, etc. which is why I didn't get burned out. So I'd do it if you really want to take the rotation.
 
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JaynaAli said:
I went from September until now without a vacation except for about a week off at the holidays. I used some of my time early in the year to visit internship and residency places. I have the last couple weeks of school off and it's going to be nice to be done soon. Some days going so long without a break sucked, but those days were not the majority and I don't regret the way I used my breaks. I think the occasional rotation with minimal evening and weekend duties really helped break up the long weeks of surgery, IM, etc. which is why I didn't get burned out. So I'd do it if you really want to take the rotation.
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I submitted the form to add it. I should be fine because many of the rotations around when I would take it are shorter hours or only 3 days a week and stuff like that, so I feel like I'll be fine. I feel like I'd regret it more if I didn't take it.
 
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Yeah, you'll be fine if you've got lighter rotations around it. I started Jan 5 and don't finish until Apr 17 (though I have had like two weeks worth of snow days scattered through there....) and I didn't find it to be a problem.
 
Trilt said:
You only get one vacation!? We get four two-week slots... very few people use all of them, or generally use them to make externships longer/etc, but still.
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We get one week off during either Christmas or New Year's and then one 2 week vacation. Bummer. And I only get 3, 2 week externships spots. I feel like I've been shortchanged :/
 
NStarz said:
We get one week off during either Christmas or New Year's and then one 2 week vacation. Bummer. And I only get 3, 2 week externships spots. I feel like I've been shortchanged :/
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:/ That seems stingy. Does it vary by track, or focus area (...if you have those?) or is that the same for everyone?

We get 4 vacation blocks and then three extramural blocks for most tracks. Blocks are generally two weeks, but are three long in a couple spots (mainly near holidays). It's nice that you guys definitely get one of the holidays off, though, I had to get lucky for Christmas!
 
Trilt said:
:/ That seems stingy. Does it vary by track, or focus area (...if you have those?) or is that the same for everyone?

We get 4 vacation blocks and then three extramural blocks for most tracks. Blocks are generally two weeks, but are three long in a couple spots (mainly near holidays). It's nice that you guys definitely get one of the holidays off, though, I had to get lucky for Christmas!
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Small animal has 3 externship blocks, I think food animal has 4. Not sure about the others. It's either 3 or 4 though for all of them, unless you're individualized in which case you only have 13 core rotations and the rest are off site.
 
Well, I made it 2 weeks on my path rotation before hurting myself. Sliced my finger on a scalpel blade while doing a cat necropsy today. One more week to go..
 
NStarz said:
We get one week off during either Christmas or New Year's and then one 2 week vacation. Bummer. And I only get 3, 2 week externships spots. I feel like I've been shortchanged :/
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That does seem stingy. How long are your rotations and how many do you have weekends off for? We have 8 weeks off in addition to on on Christmas or New Years. But only 4 weeks for electives/externships, so if you want to do more it comes from your vacation. We have our final cumulative exam before we start clinics :( 4 days of physical exams...I am looking forward to clinics though
 
Fireflysushi said:
That does seem stingy. How long are your rotations and how many do you have weekends off for? We have 8 weeks off in addition to on on Christmas or New Years. But only 4 weeks for electives/externships, so if you want to do more it comes from your vacation. We have our final cumulative exam before we start clinics :( 4 days of physical exams...I am looking forward to clinics though
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Rotations are each two weeks. Not sure how many we get weekends off for. Probably not that many.
 
We have up to 12 weeks of off campus rotations that may also be on campus electives like ophtho, cardio, shelter med, ultrasound, clin path, and so on. We have 6 weeks of required preceptor that must be off campus. And we have 3 weeks of vacation that must be taken all at once, plus one week around Christmas.
 
twelvetigers said:
We have up to 12 weeks of off campus rotations that may also be on campus electives like ophtho, cardio, shelter med, ultrasound, clin path, and so on. We have 6 weeks of required preceptor that must be off campus. And we have 3 weeks of vacation that must be taken all at once, plus one week around Christmas.
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Hmm, ophtho, cardio, and shelter med are core for us. Interesting how different schools do it!
 
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NStarz said:
Hmm, ophtho, cardio, and shelter med are core for us. Interesting how different schools do it!
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SA people here are required to do 4 of the -ologies (ophtho, cardio, derm, etc) but the only things absolutely required for everyone are like... anesthesia, radiology, medicine, GP (for your focus - like as a zoo person, I can take zoo or wildlife rehab instead of small animal GP), etc.

We don't even have an official shelter med rotation. :( I'm making my own with a vacation block, but I really wish it was something we actually had in the curriculum.
 
Our required rotations are: food animal medicine (& surg), SA internal medicine, SA community practice, anesthesia, ICU, radiology, diagnostics (pathology), SA surgery, equine medicine, equine surgery.
 
Our required rotations are: Primary Care, Necropsy and Clin Path, Radiology, Anesthesia, SA Medicine, SA Surgery, ICU, Equine Med, Food Animal Med and Surgery

Then other required rotations, electives and how many weeks of preceptorships you can get vary depending upon which track you choose.
 
We have foundation courses that I believe are required for all majors -- SA Internal Med, SA Soft Tissue Sx, LA Med, LA ECC and LA Sx. Then as a small animal major, I'm required to take Cardio, Path, Primary Care, Pediatrics/Genetics/Repro, ICU, Derm, Onco, ES, Radiology and Anesthesia.
 
orca2011 said:
We have foundation courses that I believe are required for all majors -- SA Internal Med, SA Soft Tissue Sx, LA Med, LA ECC and LA Sx. Then as a small animal major, I'm required to take Cardio, Path, Primary Care, Pediatrics/Genetics/Repro, ICU, Derm, Onco, ES, Radiology and Anesthesia.
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Pediatrics! That sounds amazing!
 
For vacation we get 4 weeks randomly divided up into 2-3 blocks. For externships we are required to do 4 weeks, but can do 6-8 if we take up vacation time. I have 2, 1 week vacation blocks in the first 1/3 of clinic time.

For required rotations ours are: small animal med, anesthesia, farm animal med & sx, equine med, radiology, pathology, community practice, and field services. All of those are 3 weeks long. Most of the oligies are service electives, which means they require a certain number of students to run the service. Service electives and all other electives are 2 weeks in length.
 
Womp. Have to drop my Shelter Med elective because they have a final project due the days I'm missing for a wedding. No exceptions made. Kind of a bummer because I was interested in taking it.
 
Clinics start on Monday. Eeeeeek
 
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Passed 3 female ucaths today (blind, I might add). Feeling uber proud. Lol. My instructor said I should be a urologist :p

Also, orientation on Monday, one more week of classes, a few finals, white coat...clinics start May 4!
 
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NStarz said:
Passed 3 female ucaths today (blind, I might add). Feeling uber proud. Lol. My instructor said I should be a urologist :p

Also, orientation on Monday, one more week of classes, a few finals, white coat...clinics start May 4!
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I am jealous, we have 2 more weeks, then finals. We end with finals on Thursday and immediately start clinics on Friday, May 8th. This is me: :scared:
 
DVMDream said:
I am jealous, we have 2 more weeks, then finals. We end with finals on Thursday and immediately start clinics on Friday, May 8th. This is me: :scared:
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They actually are only making us come in for 1.5 days of orientation in person. The rest is online/video recorded. So after finals, we get four whole days off before white coat! SO thankful they decided to do this for us. Last year, they were stuck listening to orientation lectures all week after finals.
 
NStarz said:
They actually are only making us come in for 1.5 days of orientation in person. The rest is online/video recorded. So after finals, we get four whole days off before white coat! SO thankful they decided to do this for us. Last year, they were stuck listening to orientation lectures all week after finals.
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We had a week and a half of 8-5 orientation after finals. Suuuuuuuucked
 
DVMDream said:
I can't tell for sure, but am I correct that you don't need to register as a member to view the webinar while it is "live"?
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thats what it looks like, but admittedly i didnt really investigate too far since i am nearly done with clinics and not in need of viewing it ;)
 
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Going out to dinner with my mentor/PI after white coat with the family :) Hope my family doesn't embarrass me :p T-13 days til clinics!
 
I'm really enjoying my oncology rotation so far. It's really nice - because I'm not an official student on the block, I get to follow everyone around and see everything, but don't need to do any of the paperwork. We've also had some kind of weird cancers (for them), not just a parade of lymphoma/osteosarcs.
 
Day 2 of equine surgery. Already took my own car despite there being 3 class of 2015 people still on. Got to assist in surgery and they let do most of the skin closure. Had a good day, and I don't like horses or surgery!
 
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3 more exams to go, then rotations start May 4th! Students at other Canadian schools: when did you get your rotation schedules? We got ours late February and admin said that was before 2 other schools got theirs...but we had students from other Canadian schools looking for accommodations in January for rotations at the AVC next year.
 
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If anyone finds my motivation, please return in to me. I'm trying to get a paper done that is due this Saturday while I'll be in a wedding, so I'm attempting to get it done before I leave for it tomorrow. Also need to study for a Pharm quiz that is due tonight and begin studying for my Surgery final in a little over a week.
 
Vaccinated and dewormed 100 ewes today, vaccinated 100 lambs, trimmed some feet, and bled some ewes. My arms are shaking and feel like jello as I type this. I'm going to feel it tomorrow!
 
Spoke a little soon about oncology. Everything hit the fan and started dying (or rather, dying more immediately) - we had hospital inpatients and emergency transfers and a bunch of bleeding masses, oh my. All of which is usually pretty rare for the service, apparently. Ended the week with a pow-wow between all the students, house officers and our really fabulous school social worker. Sheesh.
 
Done with lectures!!! 4 finals left til clinics! My last lecture of vet school (ever) had me bawling like a child because it was on end of life care and hospice. Gee, thanks. And then we got reamed by our micro final when it was wayyyyy harder than our midterm. Everyone was a little flummoxed. At least it's only a one credit class.
 
NStarz said:
Done with lectures!!! 4 finals left til clinics! My last lecture of vet school (ever) had me bawling like a child because it was on end of life care and hospice. Gee, thanks. And then we got reamed by our micro final when it was wayyyyy harder than our midterm. Everyone was a little flummoxed. At least it's only a one credit class.
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Make that 3 finals :-D
 
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Still in lectures for another week.

Still worried about passing third year.

This is me:
GIF_147547_cuando_ves_al_amor_de_tu_vida_con_el_malote_del_barrio.gif
 
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