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Veterinary Science Graduate Programs from U. of I.
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SkiOtter said:
O O F
My very nice 1 bedroom, 1.5 bath apartment in Illinois with an attached garage, in a very nice area, was less than that 😭 I got off the waitlist so a lot of the less expensive but still decent stuff had already been scooped by the time I was looking and then I just stayed there all 4 years because I didn’t want to move (I hate moving)
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Welcome to California COL, baby!!!! *Sobs*
 
On a separate note: my husband had an AUS on Friday due to elevated liver values. His results came back today and they found hepatic steatitis. He isn't obese (or even overweight), we don't drink alcohol, don't have a high fat diet, etc. They want to schedule him for a CT or MRI. I'm over here with my medical knowledge worries he has a pituitary tumor like a Cushing's dog 🫠😵
 
First year 2nd semester is thrashing me so hard

dog toy GIF by The BarkPost
 
fauna said:
ok i dont have aldi around here but can u pls share any tips for cutting costs on groceries. i am wayyyy over budget.
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i also spend ~$50-60 on groceries/week (and also shop mostly at aldi)! a few of the things i do:
1. have a few meals that are cheap and easy consistently in a rotation. i make a chicken stir fry probably every other week at least. i also make a pork stir fry, some variation of chicken + rice + beans, and smth i call tuna bread (essentially a tuna salad with kale i put on toast). *side note cans of tuna are like 90 cents and 30 grams of protein, ik it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but i eat it all the time.*
2. i buy dry/frozen stuff in bulk when i can (my mom got me a costco membership as a vet school present). i have a 2lb bag of stir fry veggies in my freezer and a 12pack of ramen in my pantry for my stir fry
3. most of what i buy are ingredients. i don’t buy freezer meals or a ton of snacks. i also don’t buy a ton of drinks, but i have a tea collection that kinda makes up for that. i also try to buy things that i can use in multiple ways, not just for one recipe.
4. i sign up for every free food event that my school has to offer 🙂
 
fauna said:
ok i dont have aldi around here but can u pls share any tips for cutting costs on groceries. i am wayyyy over budget.
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I spend about $30-40 a week on groceries shopping at Kroger! I do spend around $70-100 to replenish my pantry after winter/spring/summer break though. I recommend BudgetBytes if you want some ideas with a cost breakdown per serving!
  • I make a lot of curries! Rice + chicken or chickpeas + coconut milk + carrots/onions/spinach is a pretty common meal for me. Also pasta + protein + sauce and protein + potatoes + veggie.
  • I don't get snack-y foods and the only drink I can get is Dr. Pepper because I need it. I try to reach for filling snacks like yogurt (which I make myself) or a spoonful of peanut butter if I'm hungry between meals
  • Kroger has clearance produce where I can grab a bag of 5 apples/potatoes/whatever they're trying to get rid of for less than $2. I also get a lot of bread from the bakery clearance. In general, I try to shop sales and stock up when something I use a lot is cheap.
  • I did a Souptober and Soupvember, where I only made soup for two months straight. It made a lot of food for a pretty low price! One big pot would last me 5+ days. I froze about 6 servings of soups I got sick of eating and ate it during finals week.
  • I never let anything go to waste. Spinach going bad? Toss it into a quiche. Berries getting mushy? Make muffins from scratch. Getting tired of leftovers? Toss it in the freezer for another week.
  • I also sign up for every lunch lecture I can get my hands on. I take home whatever I don't finish (i.e., got half a Chipotle burrito in my fridge from today's lecture).
 
overcastkidjuno said:
Has anyone currently in practice opted out of using the "AI scribe" systems? I've been seeing more and more of this used in clinics. I am extremely morally opposed to generative AI and I refuse to use it for any purpose, to the point where I will stop using a service / product if they force it on me. I don't care if it saves time, I would rather handwrite my case notes for 20 hours than use it for even one prompt. I am fully willing to search far and wide when I graduate to find somewhere that does not make me use it and will not force me to do so. But, I wanted to see if anyone has had success opting out when their clinic implemented this, as that would calm my fears somewhat.
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My clinic has offered it to us but has not made it a requirement. There seeing definitely are a lot of clinics that will not force you to use a scribe system if you don’t want to!
Also, highly recommend making a template for normals that you can just copy paste and change things. It’ll def save you so much time
 
soupshark said:
Oh wow that's very similar to my rent and I don't have mountains 😭 I pay about $1500 with utilities in butt-f middle of nowhere IL lol
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My old apartment looks like it’s going for just under 1600 and then utilities on top of that 😂 also the butt f middle of nowhere in the cornfields near the YMCA in SW Champaign 😂
 
fauna said:
ok i dont have aldi around here but can u pls share any tips for cutting costs on groceries. i am wayyyy over budget.
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Plan your meals for the week ahead of time and only buy what you need at the grocery store + a little treat. I stopped eating meat because tofu, lentils, and beans are cheaper and still full of protein if you balance them with the right stuff. I eat a lot of rice and veggies and seasonings are cheap

I'm lactose intolerant so I save a lot of money on animal products also. Things like eggs and cheese are expensive, but also allow yourself to eat things you like even if it's not every single week. I also only eat out at restaurants/door dash once or twice a month and I save there too.

COUPONS!!! and buying produce near it's expiration on clearance (walmart is good for this I always get their fresh bread from the clearance rack)
 
mw1356 said:
3. most of what i buy are ingredients. i don’t buy freezer meals or a ton of snacks. i also don’t buy a ton of drinks, but i have a tea collection that kinda makes up for that. i also try to buy things that i can use in multiple ways, not just for one recipe.
4. i sign up for every free food event that my school has to offer 🙂
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These two are big that I forgot to include. Although I keep my fridge stocked with La Croix but it's significantly cheaper than the Waterloo that they also sell at Aldi!

Stir fry is a good way to make cheap meals like you said. Soup is another good one. I'm a soup fanatic and eat it almost every day during the non-summer months, and you can prep a ton of food at once for very cheap per meal! Invest in a crock pot if you don't have one, buy some veggies, protein, and stock, set that in there for 8 hours and eat up when you get home. I just made bomb ass split pea for this week 🤤
 
SkiOtter said:
My old apartment looks like it’s going for just under 1600 and then utilities on top of that 😂 also the butt f middle of nowhere in the cornfields near the YMCA in SW Champaign 😂
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nnnnnnnnnnnnyup

Champaign has a low average income but they definitely take advantage of the student population in terms of rent prices. I really wanted to buy instead of rent but I needed a cosigner, and needless to say it's hard to find someone to cosign a house with me lol. Mortgages here can be as low as $500 a month for a pre-fab which is a better use of your money but oh well I guess 🤷‍♂️

I'm looking forward to owning
 
SkiOtter said:
My old apartment looks like it’s going for just under 1600 and then utilities on top of that 😂 also the butt f middle of nowhere in the cornfields near the YMCA in SW Champaign 😂
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Then I guess Arizona is pretty affordable haha because my not stellar but pretty okay 1bd, 1ba with a full size washer and dryer is 935 a month and utilities usually run me about 200-250 a month (electric, internet, water/sewer/trash) so it's not too bad. Even with my rent increase in May it will be just over 1k. There are definitely more expensive 1bds here. My friend pays 1700 for hers. And it's really nice. But my apartment is just about as big, just older. And I am still within 15-20 minutes of all the campuses we need to be at.
 
I was paying $1585 for a room in an old townhouse basement in DC 🫠. It was walking distance to campus though which was worth it because my school isn't on the metro.

I've been thinking a lot about living alone vs with roommates in vet school. I really love the idea of having my own space and never feeling trapped in my own room, but I’m scared it'll be harder to make friends that way and that I'll miss out on stuff. I guess it'll really come down to where I end up and what's available
 
battie said:
😅

The reputation in the lower classes for @pp9 class was, "Work hard, play hard." Definitely a high volume of partying rumored for 2019, definitely for 2021, and the students of 2024 took it to a whole new level 🤣🤣🤣
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Omg for real. I wasn’t in the party crowd, but the stories I’d hear….especially from those post-exam weekends. To be fair, the school as a whole got down pretty hard lol. I think Vet Prom 2016 (or 2017? idr) was the first year that we didn't get banned by the venue
fauna said:
ok i dont have aldi around here but can u pls share any tips for cutting costs on groceries. i am wayyyy over budget.
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This doesn't help with upfront costs, but take a look at Ibotta. Basically an alternative coupon/rebate app. If you are good about it, you can get a few hundred back a year especially with the online shopping deals. And shameless plug, but if you use referral code 'ybazya' we both get $ lol.
SkiOtter said:
My old apartment looks like it’s going for just under 1600 and then utilities on top of that 😂 also the butt f middle of nowhere in the cornfields near the YMCA in SW Champaign 😂
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I lived in Fairlawn Village my last two years and it doesn't look like it's gone up all that much. Maybe up by $200-300ish if I'm remembering correctly? That's not that crazy considering it's been 7ish years now. My Tampa apartment though...that one has almost doubled and it was in a terrible neighborhood to begin with.
 
purpleeventer said:
but I’m scared it'll be harder to make friends that way and that I'll miss out on stuff. I guess it'll really come down to where I end up and what's available
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You won't miss out. Vet school stuff will get advertised very well through email, posters, and word of mouth. You won't be able to miss it.
 
battie said:
You won't miss out. Vet school stuff will get advertised very well through email, posters, and word of mouth. You won't be able to miss it.
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ditto on this!

as a Y0 we have like zero (hah) interaction with the current students because our buildings for classes are not the same, but we are included in almost every email list. bar crawls, socials, or anything vet school related thing, we get an invite.

now if people are going out to trivia or drag shows, that’s private invite but if you go to the vet school events, you’ll mingle and make friends and eventually do those friends-only hangouts!
 
overcastkidjuno said:
Has anyone currently in practice opted out of using the "AI scribe" systems? I've been seeing more and more of this used in clinics.
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Human med here, do not use AI.

My team of residents do not use it either.

Right now, I'd rather have patients receive real-life care, treatment and medical management from real-life human peeps and not rely on AI that is prone to errors, misstatements of diagnostic facts, misinterpretation of clinical data, omissions, and sometimes "making up" things about patients that never even existed in the first place.
 
Doctor-S said:
Human med here, do not use AI.

My team of residents do not use it either.

Right now, I'd rather have patients receive real-life care, treatment and medical management from real-life human peeps and not rely on AI that is prone to errors, misstatements of diagnostic facts, misinterpretation of clinical data, omissions, and sometimes "making up" things about patients that never even existed in the first place.
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I feel so validated right now
 
Just ranting about human healthcare - my issue is so minor but I'm annoyed. I had my 28ish week labs/glucose test a two weeks ago. Glucose is fine, CBC/ferritin showed I'm anemic with a very low-normal iron level (never been anemic or had low iron in my life, fwiw). Cool, this happens in pregnancy sometimes. They did not check a chem which I thought was weird, but idk. One of the nurses in my OB office reached out and told me to start taking an iron supplement - let her know that I've actually been taking one 3-4 times a week for the duration of my pregnancy. She said to just keep taking it and we left it at that. I should have advocated for myself a bit more, but I also was not really feeling any significant symptoms at the time.

My OB just yesterday had a nurse reach out again to clarify. Long story short, I've got orders to start getting iron infusions. My symptoms have progressed since the initial blood draw and I was planning on discussing this at my next visit in one week, but happy to get things kickstarted sooner if I can. Turns out the pulsatile tinnitus that has slowly been sapping me of my sanity can absolutely be a result of iron deficiency/anemia, I'm really hoping the infusions will resolve that.

So like, what happened there with the first nurse though? Did she decide that having low iron despite my supplementation wasn't an issue? Why did it take my OB (who I do like) two weeks to review my labs? If a vet tech did that without first consulting a DVM prior to giving the advice, we'd consider that a huge overstep and action would possibly be taken. If I took two weeks to review labs and then was like 'oh there's a problem we need to be acting on,' clients would want my head on a chopping block.
 
Same complaint here. We know about my husband's fatty liver because we did blood work for life insurance policies and he had elevated liver enzymes. So rechecked 4 months later, still high. His GP (husband of my GP) order an AUS and another set of bloods. Didn't tell my husband what bloods. Got the ultrasound back yesterday and a call from an imaging place for MR or CT. No call from his GP yet. We read the ultrasound report since I have the medical know what to read one.

First, where the hell is the call? If we do an AUS at my hospital, I call that day, within hours of the ultrasound.

Second, the AUS was $280 for our copay and IT WAS ONLY HEPATIC AND BILIARY. WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU NOT DO THE ENTIRE ABDOMEN??? THE LIVER DOESNT WORK ON ITS OWN!!! My entire AUS charge is, like, $600 or less. What if he had a big ass mass and we didn't look for lymphadenopathy?!

Third, what was the extra blood work?!
 
battie said:
Same complaint here. We know about my husband's fatty liver because we did blood work for life insurance policies and he had elevated liver enzymes. So rechecked 4 months later, still high. His GP (husband of my GP) order an AUS and another set of bloods. Didn't tell my husband what bloods. Got the ultrasound back yesterday and a call from an imaging place for MR or CT. No call from his GP yet. We read the ultrasound report since I have the medical know what to read one.

First, where the hell is the call? If we do an AUS at my hospital, I call that day, within hours of the ultrasound.

Second, the AUS was $280 for our copay and IT WAS ONLY HEPATIC AND BILIARY. WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU NOT DO THE ENTIRE ABDOMEN??? THE LIVER DOESNT WORK ON ITS OWN!!! My entire AUS charge is, like, $600 or less. What if he had a big ass mass and we didn't look for lymphadenopathy?!

Third, what was the extra blood work?!
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Having been through so much with my dad, having medical knowledge in these situations is a blessing and a curse. I absolutely know that my dad's care team grew to hate me because I was pointing out something obvious to them, or asking legit good questions, on a weekly basis at a minimum. I am glad we can be good advocates, but so much falls on our shoulders as a result and it is rare to find a human health professional that is willing to hear us out, or even treat us like maybe, just maybe, we might know something or understand what is going on.

I know insurance plays a role in what they can and cannot do (ie maybe your hubby would have gotten a full abd aus, but insurance put the kabosh on it), but when it comes to simpler things I will never understand how human med functions at what is supposed to be such a 'high level' but also in ways that has us lowly vet people raising eyebrows.
 
pp9 said:
Having been through so much with my dad, having medical knowledge in these situations is a blessing and a curse. I absolutely know that my dad's care team grew to hate me because I was pointing out something obvious to them, or asking legit good questions, on a weekly basis at a minimum. I am glad we can be good advocates, but so much falls on our shoulders as a result and it is rare to find a human health professional that is willing to hear us out, or even treat us like maybe, just maybe, we might know something or understand what is going on.

I know insurance plays a role in what they can and cannot do (ie maybe your hubby would have gotten a full abd aus, but insurance put the kabosh on it), but when it comes to simpler things I will never understand how human med functions at what is supposed to be such a 'high level' but also in ways that has us lowly vet people raising eyebrows.
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It's so wild. If we don't hear from his GP today, we're calling tomorrow because I want to be present for the call.

This also happened when my dad was in the hospital a few years ago. I called his ultimate problem days before his GI doc did. Absolutely ridiculous

I hope your iron infusions go well ❤️
 
pp9 said:
lol right?! like watch the first available appt be after my due date
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I laugh because of the irony.

Are there any other facilities within a reasonable drive covered by your insurance? Depending on our call with Hub's GP, I might shop around for CT/MR facilities based on cost
 
battie said:
I laugh because of the irony.

Are there any other facilities within a reasonable drive covered by your insurance? Depending on our call with Hub's GP, I might shop around for CT/MR facilities based on cost
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I'm still waiting for the infusion clinic that is connected to the hospital with a MFM service to call to schedule. If they give me some crazy far out date, I'll have to call around. I'm sure I have options though, being in a big metro area.
 
fauna said:
thanks for the tips guys <3

why is the advice always to plan my life and be responsible and not continue being a snack goblin 🙁
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Haha, I budget groceries pretty tight but I still snack. I just get cheaper snacks 😅
Also a fan of buying baking mixes instead of premade snacks so there's a slightly higher barrier to impulse buying lol
 
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