Class of 2016....how ya doing?

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twelvetigers said:
If it is getting to you, then you should cut back. If you don't want to drop anything, then just cut back a little bit with each thing. A few less hours, fewer responsibilities, something. No sense in doing all the extra stuff if it's gonna make you have trouble with your DVM (that's why you are there in the first place) or your relationship (because is that really worth it) or your personal health (duh).
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I should. I know... School is going just fine... But the other two are not. Might get scoped for a gastric ulcer. But ain't nobody got time for that.
 
psilovethomas said:
I am going to crash and burn one day and it will be terrible. On top of second year, I tutor first year histo, I work in ER radiology, I volunteer at a cat rescue, and I am the treasurer of a club whose president drives me insane. I'm just waiting for it to happen. Ugh. 🙁 And I feel terrible that I can't go home to visit my boyfriend this weekend like I told him I would. So burnt out..
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Aww, hang in there! Vet school is a marathon, not a sprint. Too echo TT's sentiments, dial back some of you commitments. I had to do that earlier this year to avoid burnout and was expecting some backlash. Turns out everyone in vet school (in my experience) is going through similar things and are really understanding when you have to prioritize and cut some things out. There is only so much time in one day. Don't feel badly that you're not superwoman. And take care of yourself most importantly (meaning get that endoscope)!
 
Echoing TT - find a way to cut back. So many people think they need to be so stoic about school and juggling everything but you aren't a failure if you are feeling overwhelmed by it all. Be kind to yourself, you still have two and a half years to go.
 
This was almost on the third page.... 😱😕


I know a lot of you will find me crazy, but I wish we had more exams. This whole..... here is ALL the information for ALL the subjects for this semester and then having ONE exam in which you have to rely on for your entire grade.... AHHHHHH! We had a multiple choice "midterm" a few weeks back but it is only worth 13% of the grade. I just wish we had a few more exams throughout the semester so that I could gauge if I am studying well enough/effectively. So... exams are in 5 weeks... I am terrified and behind. We have OSCE's the first day (gloving/suturing/anaesthetic machines/anything else they want to ask us), then we have a multiple choice vet pathology exam, then a "spots" exam for vet pathology, then we have a written exam for CFC (clinical foundations) of which includes surgery, anaesthesia, pharmacology, oncology, epidemiology and radiology.... This is going to be me for the next 5 weeks... :bookworm::banghead:
 
DVMDream said:
I know a lot of you will find me crazy, but I wish we had more exams.
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I don't find that crazy at all. It was one of my biggest annoyances about first year - just about every course (or possibly every course, I don't remember), boiled down to a midterm and a final. Even having just two grades was stressful. Having everything come down to one grade would be a sure-fire way for me to need horse-strength ulcer preventatives.
 
Our endocrine class is like that...we only have a midterm and a final. And that's the class I'm having the most trouble in. GAHHHHH.
 
two more exams until finals. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! I am not looking forward to next semester, though. It is supposed to be the hardest.
 
I think this person in my class here is delusional.....

We were discussing our SSC2 projects (we have to do a research project) and she had been talking before about rabbits so I asked her if she was going to do something with exotics for her project and she said no. Then somehow we got onto the topic of what we want to do when we graduate and she said that she only came to vet school to get her degree because she wants to go back and do free spays and neuters for pets in low income areas/on the Indian reservations. I said, that is really nice, are you able to get some government assistance with that, to help pay back your loans (since I know those programs exist). Her response is no, you don't get paid for it, I am just going to do it for free. So I asked her how she is going to pay back her loans and she said, well, I am older (not sure what this has to do with anything) and I know how to reduce my living expenses... umm, ok, you will still have debt to pay back and she goes... yeah, I know, but there is this one place that I want to do an internship at, so I will do a one year internship there and then after that, they sometimes hire people and then they will hire me and they pay you like $100,000/year and I will just do that for like 5 years and then I will be fine.

Me: :jawdrop:😱:wideyed:😵:bored::cyclops::facepalm::meh:
 
Performed my first feline spays today!!! But now I'm super tired and not motivated to study for my Gen Path exam on Wednesday, which is unfortunate since I'm volunteering at a TNR tomorrow as well.
 
One more test before finals start in December. Have a LOT of catching up to do. I'm with the final surgeon group, so I'm not doing my surgery until right before finals.

I still like this semester, and overall I'm doing much much better. Can't wait until break though. Quality time with the bf and non vet school friends!
 
DVMDream said:
This was almost on the third page.... 😱😕


I know a lot of you will find me crazy, but I wish we had more exams. This whole..... here is ALL the information for ALL the subjects for this semester and then having ONE exam in which you have to rely on for your entire grade.... AHHHHHH! We had a multiple choice "midterm" a few weeks back but it is only worth 13% of the grade. I just wish we had a few more exams throughout the semester so that I could gauge if I am studying well enough/effectively. So... exams are in 5 weeks... I am terrified and behind. We have OSCE's the first day (gloving/suturing/anaesthetic machines/anything else they want to ask us), then we have a multiple choice vet pathology exam, then a "spots" exam for vet pathology, then we have a written exam for CFC (clinical foundations) of which includes surgery, anaesthesia, pharmacology, oncology, epidemiology and radiology.... This is going to be me for the next 5 weeks... :bookworm::banghead:
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I wouldn't like that system at all, so I understand completely. I'm a very traditional learner, so the whole binge on info then purge on test works well for me. That being said, I think your school's system is teaching you to have a more integrated view of medicine, which is eventually the whole point. It's no use learning by putting things into little boxes called "subjects" and "material that is going to be on the exam vs material not on the exam". So... I'm sure it sucks for you now, but I'll bet you'll be better off come clinics than I will be.
 
DVMDream said:
🙁😡😕:arghh::bag::banghead::bigtears:👽:bookworm::dead::drowning:👽:grumpy::inpain::meh::nailbiting::rage::yeahright::sour::yawn::yuck:🤐😢:notworthy:😴👎🤔:scared:+pissed+:nono::poke::slap::smack::lame::bang::annoyed::boom::diebanana:


I think that explains how I am feeling well enough....
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Same. I feel like I am going crazy. Very anxious for some reason. The people that live above me stomp around a lot and are moving crap around. I have been very sensitive to it for the past few days, and I think it is because I feel so anxious. Ugh. I have not been sleeping well- I can't fall asleep and then my neighbors wake me up really early in the morning with their stomping. Ugh. I feel like I am falling apart!
 
I need to start studying for finals. They are only a few weeks away. But I don't want to study. And I want to go to class even less. And stupid surgery lab (I hate surgery). I think I'm just annoyed at everything having to do with vet school right now.

At least one class, anesthesia, is done. We've already had the final. That's one less to worry about.

Did I mention I bought a ticket to RiffTrax the night before our toxicology final?
 
Attempting to figure out what is on a cytology slide:

tumblr_m0usk1O8ly1rpp260o1_250.gif
 
Four days left of classes, then two weeks of finals! Almost doneeeeeeee
 
Trilt said:
I have two tests, two surgeries (one as primary surgeon), and then eight final exams (3 cumulative) before Thanksgiving. Shoot me now.
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Who's done? THIS GIRL! Now let's hope I actually passed that miserable surgery final... but not worry too much about it, gonna drink a beer and sleep.
 
This was a question asked to us during the pathology revision session today:

Match the aetiology on the TOP with the most characteristic histological change in the liver on the BOTTOM:

i) Pyrrolizidine alkalosis
ii) Chronic aflatoxicosis
iii)Hyperlipaemia



a) Hepatocyte vacuolation
b) Hepatocyte necrosis
c) Hepatocyte megalocytosis
d) Biliary hyperplasia
e) Haemosiderosis

Me:

tumblr_mmjzrprR6y1r9s5wdo1_400.gif
 
I'm like... Crotalaria and Senecio... one is Sleepy Staggers and the other is Bottoms Disease... aflatoxins are like, a corn thing? Haha. I think i is a and ii is d but errrr I have slept since then so. I liked toxicology though.
 
DVMDream said:
This was a question asked to us during the pathology revision session today:

Match the aetiology on the TOP with the most characteristic histological change in the liver on the BOTTOM:

i) Pyrrolizidine alkalosis
ii) Chronic aflatoxicosis
iii)Hyperlipaemia



a) Hepatocyte vacuolation
b) Hepatocyte necrosis
c) Hepatocyte megalocytosis
d) Biliary hyperplasia
e) Haemosiderosis

Me:

tumblr_mmjzrprR6y1r9s5wdo1_400.gif
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That's kind of a bull**** question because those diseases cause more than one of the answers. I feel like it us rather subjective to say which is the most characteristic. PA toxicity can be acute (less common) or chronic, producing different lesions. The classic chronic lesions are megalocytosis, fibrosis, biliary hyperplasia, and massive centrilobular hepatocyte loss (not necrosis, that happens first and is gone by the time it gets chronic). Aflatoxin causes similar lesions including biliary hyperplasia but with noticeable fatty change/vacuolation. Hyperlipemia will cause Vacuolation as well.
 
I mean, if someone held a gun to my head I'd say

PA Tox - megalocytosis because the toxins interfere with cell growth/mitosis/regeneration.
Aflatoxin - biliary hyperplasia
Both of these also cause initial necrosis too, so BS question. Every case of chronic pa Tox I have seen also has biliary hyperplasia. Chronic aflatoxin and chronic pa are hard to differentiate.
Hyperlipemia - Vacuolation (BS because fatty change is a prominent feature of aflatoxicosis too)

Anyway I'll stop pathologizing all up in here
 
WhtsThFrequency said:
That's kind of a bullcrap question because those diseases cause more than one of the answers. I feel like it us rather subjective to say which is the most characteristic. PA toxicity can be acute (less common) or chronic, producing different lesions. The classic chronic lesions are megalocytosis, fibrosis, biliary hyperplasia, and massive centrilobular hepatocyte loss (not necrosis, that happens first and is gone by the time it gets chronic). Aflatoxin causes similar lesions including biliary hyperplasia but with noticeable fatty change/vacuolation. Hyperlipemia will cause Vacuolation as well.
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:laugh:

He even said that there are multiple right answers for each one, but there are some classic changes that we should be able to figure out...

I just shook my head and figured, at least I would have gotten one of them right, better than none.

I don't plan on becoming a pathologist.... I :bow: to you. I am just not great at seeing things on the microscope.
 
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WhtsThFrequency said:
I mean, if someone held a gun to my head I'd say

PA Tox - megalocytosis because the toxins interfere with cell growth/mitosis/regeneration.
Aflatoxin - biliary hyperplasia
Both of these also cause initial necrosis too, so BS question. Every case of chronic pa Tox I have seen also has biliary hyperplasia. Chronic aflatoxin and chronic pa are hard to differentiate.
Hyperlipemia - Vacuolation (BS because fatty change is a prominent feature of aflatoxicosis too)

Anyway I'll stop pathologizing all up in here
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And those were the answers he would have considered correct.... 🙂
 
WTF-you're so smart. I'm am humbled, as I am studying GI path right now. Wanna come take my final for me-I mean, we're in the same building....
 
CanHardlyWait said:
WTF-you're so smart. I'm am humbled, as I am studying GI path right now. Wanna come take my final for me-I mean, we're in the same building....
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Seriously. I like pathology, but I feel like I suck at it. If you have any awesome study tips for my final in week I could use them, WTF. Especially since I don't think my last test went well. The first two were okay but I probably need to do well on the next.
 
D'awww.

Well I maybe good at what I do, but I'm sure there are a lot of things you guys could pwn me at too, especially when you're done. I mean, if someone presented me with a blocked cat I'd be all "Take it to the vet, I don't know what to do!" :laugh: That's what so great about vet med (or medicine in general, really) - everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and we rely on each other as a sort of a global "team"

Yeah, I don't like subjective questions. I also don't like how pathology (and histology) are taught in many schools. Too much minutiae without enough explanation of HOW it happens and why. To be fair, it's kind of hard for us pathologists. We really like what we do and it's sometimes hard for us to stop getting into the minutiae that we thing is feckin amazing but normal people dont :laugh:. It isn't that we're trying to be dicks, it's more that we love what we do so much that we try to pass it on. and since most pathology stuff isn't what you guys will use in practice, it gets lost. We're not trying to trick you with questions - vet students are so prone to overanalyzing.

However, that being said...there are TONS of facets of pathology that are totally essential to being a good vet, even if you never look at another slide in your life. I think that knowing the pathogenesis behind diseases is much more important that simply memorizing what drug to use or what treatment to do. Because if you don't actually know why the disease does what it does, and what changes it makes in the organs and how it does so, how can you be a true doctor and not a just a medication machine, you know?

That's why I want to get into teaching. Academia pays crap and all, but I think that pathology gets a bad rap and that students could learn so much more effectively. I would always tell me fourth years on the first day of rotation - "My goal is not to make you love necropsy. My goal is not to make you love pathology. My goal is not to make you memorize stuff that you will never use. My goal is to help you understand the WHY of medicine - WHY these lesions look like they do, WHY you choose one treatment over another, WHY the animal is going to present the way it does because of what is happening on a cellular level"

Pathology isn't just about microscopes and necropsy, it is about learning the whys and hows of medicine. And I think that gets kind of lost in the curriculum.

How I would like to give exams, once I become a clinical professor, is sort of how we do pathology boards. Some of it is MC pathogenesis questions (cause you gotta do that) ut the other half is pictures. Show a picture or a lesions and go ok, what is this? if an animal had this, how would it present? Etc. Because being able to recognize things visually and connect them to what disease it is is so important.
 
WhtsThFrequency said:
Show a picture or a lesions and go ok, what is this? if an animal had this, how would it present? Etc. Because being able to recognize things visually and connect them to what disease it is is so important.
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Are there schools that don't use images/specimens for pathology? Our first year pathology class has a lab exam with hands-on specimens and our second year systemic pathology courses are 50/50 split between wrtten and images. I couldn't fathom doing path without pictures.
 
Coquette22 said:
Are there schools that don't use images/specimens for pathology? Our first year pathology class has a lab exam with hands-on specimens and our second year systemic pathology courses are 50/50 split between wrtten and images. I couldn't fathom doing path without pictures.
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Oh no, I know they are used in lab and in class, etc. But I haven't seen people use them a lot in an exam format - they seem to be heavily scantron based.
 
Or in the case of histology, the whole go-around-the-room-and-identify-stuff. Which is better, I'll admit, but still missing the significance angle. That's why people tend to get turned off from path. It's like great, I can identify a glomerulus, how does that help me?
 
WhtsThFrequency said:
Oh no, I know they are used in lab and in class, etc. But I haven't seen people use them a lot in an exam format - they seem to be heavily scantron based.
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Huh. I had just assumed that most path exams were like ours with lots of pictures and short answer and "Explain the pathogenesis of..." type questions. Scantron path exams... Yuck. I would have bombed.
 
WhtsThFrequency said:
Oh no, I know they are used in lab and in class, etc. But I haven't seen people use them a lot in an exam format - they seem to be heavily scantron based.
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We don't have histo slides on our exams (we have a ton in lecture though) , but we have a lot of "what change would you see with this dz" or "what is the pathogenesis of...." etc type questions. We do have at least one gross specimen on every exam where we have to describe the lesion, give a morphological diagnosis and then usually explain the pathogenesis of the dz.

Thank god ours aren't scantron either. I wouldn't be able to BS half the points I've earned.
 
Coquette22 said:
Huh. I had just assumed that most path exams were like ours with lots of pictures and short answer and "Explain the pathogenesis of..." type questions. Scantron path exams... Yuck. I would have bombed.
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My elective pathology classes were like that in school, but our core class (not the lab exam part, that did involve specimens) was either scantron or short answer with few to no pictures. It indeed sucked.
 
WhtsThFrequency said:
Oh no, I know they are used in lab and in class, etc. But I haven't seen people use them a lot in an exam format - they seem to be heavily scantron based.
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We actually did use images on our exams. And all our path exams were mechanism based short answer. Really good at determining if you actually understood it or not.

I have not retained enough of it, however
 
Our path exams are all short answer-which I appreciate a lot! No pics on exams though.We get lots of pics on lecture and have labs for each section, but no lab exams. Labs are just for our learning.
The question types vary based on the professor. We have a young, new pathologist who is all about the why, pathogenesis and such. The older pathologists are more about the what, just memorization of lesions and causes. Boring! Studying skin path now, snooze fest!
 
CadlyWait said:
Our path exams are all short answer-which I appreciate a lot! No pics on exams though.We get lots of pics on lecture and have labs for each section, but no lab exams. Labs are just for our learning.
The question types vary based on the professor. We have a young, new pathologist who is all about the why, pathogenesis and such. The older pathologists are more about the what, just memorization of lesions and causes. Boring! Studying skin path now, snooze fest!
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Does this pathologist have a last name that begins with C? If it is who I am thinking of, I had a massive crush on him when I was a fourth year and he was finishing his PhD. No telling. :shy:
 
WhtsThFrequency said:
Does this pathologist have a last name that begins with C? If it is who I am thinking of, I had a massive crush on him when I was a fourth year and he was finishing his PhD. No telling. :shy:
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Yes and nearly every girl in my class has a massive crush on him, (although strangely, not me. I have a different "type") which he cemented by serenading us with his fiddle last year.
 
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