Class of 2020... how you doin?

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Late response, but...

When doing intradermals, put your forceps down and don't touch the skin with them.

Turn your body to face into your stitch (so if you're going from caudal to cranial have your body towards the butt). Then use your non-dominant hand thumb and pointer finger to put pressure along the incision line while you run the needle just under the skin.

Your bite should just be a smooth turn of your dominant hand towards your chest (this is why you've turned slightly; it's way more ergonomic of a motion!) and literally just the length of the needle on your suture. Then go straight across, adjust your non-dominant to put pressure on the other side of the incision, and repeat ad nauseum.

Random HQHVSN vet taught me this on a RAVS trip and my intradermals improved instantly. You also don't get near as much bruising on the skin if you only handle it with fingers.
 
This is how I do it and I think I just kinda figured it out. I hate watching boss man use forceps, and not get right along the edge. First time that we had a big incision and I did half of it, my half looked waaaay better - he told the tech to tell them he did my half (jokingly).

I can’t do much better than him, but I can sew! Lol
 
Also - I go straight across to the other side of the incision and then scoot back like half a millimeter. That makes the sides close together really well. Oh! I start on the left in the SQ layer, do a knot and leave the tail long, then do my SQ layer. Then I go right into intradermals going the opposite way and tie to the tail from my SQ starting knot. Makes it easy to bury the know.
 
twelvetigers said:
Also - I go straight across to the other side of the incision and then scoot back like half a millimeter. That makes the sides close together really well. Oh! I start on the left in the SQ layer, do a knot and leave the tail long, then do my SQ layer. Then I go right into intradermals going the opposite way and tie to the tail from my SQ starting knot. Makes it easy to bury the know.
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I also do this. Including going back just a teeny bit after I cross, but it's easy to overdo this and end up with scrunched/wavy line of suture so I don't encourage it for beginners haha.
 
When I see a surgery, I scream, run away, fall into fetal position and start hyperventilating..... that's how I do my subcuticular pattern.... (especially if I see a spay).



Actually in the rare occasion I do surgery it is usually for wound repair so I don't even use the subcuticular pattern anymore. Give me a cruciate or some staples. :laugh:
 
I’m left handed, but have always used scissors right handed. In vet school they only had right handed instruments so I pretty much just do surgery right handed...except the closure. A fellow lefty suggested starting the SQ the “normal” right handed way, but then when I turned and moved to intradermals I just pass the instruments to my left hand. I have more control over the intradermals doing that lefty and I don’t have the awkward “sewing away from you” issues. I also skipped the forceps like Trilt described. But now I don’t do surgery, so...
 
Trilt said:
I also do this. Including going back just a teeny bit after I cross, but it's easy to overdo this and end up with scrunched/wavy line of suture so I don't encourage it for beginners haha.
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That's interesting because they taught us to always backtrack when doing intradermals, from the very beginning.
 
Spay/neuter has been fun. I did 4 surgeries today, the first three were back to back cat spays (last was a neuter) and the only one I didn't enjoy was the postpartum one. So friable. Should not have even attempted pedicle ties.
 
24 more surgeries under my belt after this past rotation, more cats than dogs but it balanced well with my previous surgery experiences which tended towards more dogs. I really enjoy doing surgery and I'm gonna miss it.

Next up is Small Animal ER and my schedule is...interesting

Mon: 8am-5pm
Tues: Off
Wed-Tues (including weekend): 3pm-2am
Wed: Off
Thurs-Sun: 6am-5pm

The upside is I work all but two shifts (her days off) with one of my best friends, so it's gonna be a party!
 
Survived my first rotation (dentistry)! It was a really good one to start on, the clinicians were super nice and helpful and I got a bit of an introduction to multiple areas of the hospital. Slightly scared for ophtho next, it sounds like they have really high expectations and it's not uncommon for people to fail the rotation. So obviously I'm on SDN instead of studying. 🙄
 
ER night shifts are fun and exciting (and sometimes sad) but being there for almost 14 hours then sleeping just long enough to have an hour and a half before you're doing it all over again is less fun lol
 
I just finished my last rotation in the small animal hospital for a while. I might actually only have like one rotation left in it.

I'm kind of shocked at how much I'll miss it. I think I've done pretty well so far. But I've really enjoyed working with our nursing staff and residents. It's going to be tougher than I expected to move on from this once terrifying portion of the vet school, that I always thought I wanted nothing to do with.
 
LyraGardenia said:
Cried in front of a clinician for the first time yesterday... ophtho is indeed rough. So far today is better though!
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Forget if I mentioned on here one of my breakdowns. I scared the radiologists because the resident I needed to talk about a case with was doing her rotation there, and as soon as I saw her and I sat down, I ugly cried. Glad it was at least dark. They were all so caring and supportive though, and told me their break down stories too. It definitely happens. haha
 
Lupin21 said:
Forget if I mentioned on here one of my breakdowns. I scared the radiologists because the resident I needed to talk about a case with was doing her rotation there, and as soon as I saw her and I sat down, I ugly cried. Glad it was at least dark. They were all so caring and supportive though, and told me their break down stories too. It definitely happens. haha
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Happens in practice too. When you have great co-workers though, it makes it better
 
Any Cornell people around? Hoping to turn my last vacation slot in the spring into an externship in their clin path service. I'm basically 99% sure I'm going to do it (assuming they can accommodate me), even though it means no vacation from January through graduation.

I wish I had known ahead of time that we get just ONE day of clin path in our diagnostic services rotation so I could've set up more than one externship. Booooooo.
 
missdarjeeling said:
Any Cornell people around? Hoping to turn my last vacation slot in the spring into an externship in their clin path service. I'm basically 99% sure I'm going to do it (assuming they can accommodate me), even though it means no vacation from January through graduation.

I wish I had known ahead of time that we get just ONE day of clin path in our diagnostic services rotation so I could've set up more than one externship. Booooooo.
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Here's what I found 🙂
Good luck!

Externships at Cornell

Cornell University Hospital for Animals (CUHA) welcomes matriculating veterinary students from other colleges (in their final or next to final clinical year of veterinary school) who wish to participate in clinical rotations with our veterinary students. Visits are limited to six weeks (with no...
www.vet.cornell.edu www.vet.cornell.edu
 
Thanks for the link! 🙂 I didn't mention it in my post, but I've already been in touch with the office, and it's just a matter of getting my stuff together and waiting until later in the year to actually apply. It's my understanding that all schools handle externships the same way. The priority is getting their own students scheduled and settled first, so students from other schools can't really be scheduled until much closer to the rotation dates. I won't really know until the end of the year if they have room on the dates that I need.

I was just curious if anyone's familiar with the service or if any V20-ers had already done the rotation there.
 
I worked over 100 hours between days off
One of my patients died in a freak accident
But the little nugget I've been working on all week who has been at the hospital for a month is finally going home on Monday 🙂
 
I'm beyond ready for my vacation the first two weeks of July. I got my evaluation and grade back from ophtho, and it wasn't great. It could have been worse, I passed the rotation so that's something, but their comments brought up a moment where I stumbled during a case presentation, not because I didn't understand the concept but I just got mixed up in the moment, so that stung. I felt like I worked hard and improved over the two weeks, so being told that my basic knowledge and exam skills were still lacking by the end of the rotation hurts.

And now I'm on equine surgery, which means I'm constantly on edge between the combination of not having much horse experience, a few intense cases we've had, and there's a particular house officer who's notoriously difficult to get along with. Hopefully field service will be better, but I'll still have some on-call shifts where I may end up having to take a surgery or medicine case overnight. I don't know, I'm not necessarily looking for advice, just felt like venting because so far clinics have been a struggle for me. 😳 Dentistry was pretty good, but considering it was my first week and I didn't really know how anything in the hospital works yet, I feel like it would go a lot better if I could do it again even now.
 
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I'm tiiiiiiired

Three hours between when I get home at night and when I need to be asleep and I'm supposed to do research for rounds and for my cases?? And eat?? And interact with my husband and my cats??? Who has the time?????????
 
Last week kind of sucked, but I had the sweetest owner and patient today. When I was discharging his dog he gave me a hug and it just totally made my day and completely made up for last week.

Tomorrow a neuro patient is being transferred to me on medicine because "her case is just too weird," so that sounds like it's gonna be a nightmare :laugh:
 
DVMDream said:
I need details! This sounds like my happiness. 🙂 :laugh:
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It turned out to be far less exciting than it sounded :laugh: neuro had done ~all~ the things yesterday (idk why they didn't just transfer to medicine during the day yesterday for the work up), so when I came in at 630 we already had a diagnosis and meds started. I did zero work up on this case and was sad :laugh:
 
Caiter92 said:
It turned out to be far less exciting than it sounded :laugh: neuro had done ~all~ the things yesterday (idk why they didn't just transfer to medicine during the day yesterday for the work up), so when I came in at 630 we already had a diagnosis and meds started. I did zero work up on this case and was sad :laugh:
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Boo!!!!

I am going to guess..... some sort of immune-mediated neuro disorder... like immune-mediate meningitis, or steroid responsive encephalitis or GME
 
I think I preferred when I was super busy but at least I haven't had any breakdowns this rotation. Just had long stretches of boredom. Can't complain today though, got to go home early and lay by the pool 😀
 
Cephal0pod said:
On a tough rotation right now - feeling pretty beaten down and discouraged.

I did have a patient yesterday that was basically the 4-legged embodiment of sunshine, though. Made my day much brighter.
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I wish there was a *hug* reaction. Sorry you're feeling beaten down, I hope things start looking up for you.
 
Thanks all, appreciate the support. I ended up having much less to do in terms of weekend duties than I had anticipated, so I've been able to have some good time of recuperating and getting ready to tackle the week ahead.

Sending hugs with all eight two of my arms to anyone else who may be in need of one today.
 
Nearly halfway through my 6 week large animal rotation (its 2 three week blocks combined). Hasn't been terrible so far, but it's such a huge change from how things operate in the small animal side of the hospital.
 
Teepster87 said:
Nearly halfway through my 6 week large animal rotation (its 2 three week blocks combined). Hasn't been terrible so far, but it's such a huge change from how things operate in the small animal side of the hospital.
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It's really different here too but I like it. A little more work as a student, I think, but also made me feel like a more integral part of the team and like my patients were really mine. And it's...definitely more chill. At least here lol
 
Okay, 2020 fam! I'm planning/setting up externships for 4th year and I'm trying to figure out as many externships I can apoly for to be off campus as I can. We get 3 2-week blocks for free electives, 5 2-week blocks for directed electives, and 4 2-week blocks off.

For the directed electives, we can only go off campus for 3 blocks if we do equine, beef, dairy, swine, equine, or lab animal. Do yall have any recommendations in those categories? A lot of the 4th years at my school either stayed on campus or haven't done their off campus yet, but we should be submitting our preferences this month. So I'm turning to yall!
 
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