WSU vs. CSU

[desertdwelling]

Wondering what the differences are as far as hands-on experience goes between these schools? I have heard both schools have lots of hands-on opportunities in the different clubs but wondering as far as hands-on instruction goes. How many surgeries do students generally graduate with under their belt? How early are students involved in procedures at the hospital? Also, wondering if CSU students feel the capstone exams truly help them be more prepared when graduating vs students that did not have capstone exams? Any input helps! Thanks

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[MixedAnimals77]

Wondering what the differences are as far as hands-on experience goes between these schools? I have heard both schools have lots of hands-on opportunities in the different clubs but wondering as far as hands-on instruction goes. How many surgeries do students generally graduate with under their belt? How early are students involved in procedures at the hospital? Also, wondering if CSU students feel the capstone exams truly help them be more prepared when graduating vs students that did not have capstone exams? Any input helps! Thanks

I'll give you my input as a previous CO resident that was accepted to CSU and chose WSU instead. I'll leave out any club stuff and just focus on classes-overall for most schools though alot of hands on opportunities occur through clubs years 1-3 depending on how the clinical year is structured.

WSU you start surgery course in your first semester. Once you complete that successfully then you can start surgeries. We have the the simulation center where you can practice any surgical procedure-you have access to day 1. I started cat neuters in December in year 1 once I completed my surgery course. You can do as advanced procedures as the advising veterinarian feels comfortable letting you do and of course within that specific state's practice laws. I've done leg amputations and eye nucleation, neuters, and model spay. I've also got to play around alot with the large animal repro models, laparoscopic equipment, endoscope, and ultrasound in open lab. Year 2 we do an anesthesia simulation lab where it's not live animals, but they run us through different anesthetic simulations to help prepare us for when things go awry before we actually touch a real patient that we are responsible to keep alive. Year 2&3 we also have communications which have simulated cases. Year 1 you have an animal handling class and then live animals for some identification questions in SA and LA anatomy. We also get to bring in pets during our neuro class in year 1. Animals get brought in year 2 as well for a lab in the neuro section again. Year 2 has less opportunities within the core curriculum for live animal hands on than any other year. Year 3 there are alot more hands on animal labs practicing medicine/surgery procedures before you enter clinics in 4th year.

Starting year 1 you also have intro to clinics that you have to complete and that requires x amount of hours (based on your semester&year) in the hospital on rotations. How much you're involved kind of depends on the rotation, case load for the day, procedures, and willingness to jump in etc. If you hang out around a service long enough they let you start to do things after awhile. You have access to the hospital day 1. A plus is it's connected to the buildings where year 1&2 classes are held makes going there super easy.

Elective wise we have colic team which you get called in to work up colic cases with clinicians. I got to help with colic surgery with that. We also have a phone tree for foaling season so you can get called in for ICU care of foals or to help work up a case with mares having difficulty foaling. Those are all electives though. There are other electives but those are the only ones year 1 and 2 that are specific to animal hands on involvement. You can also take elective classes over the summer year 1&2 if you want and you are basically a 4th year for that 2-6 week period. I know oncology, orthopedics, and large animal all offer the course-there may be more. You do treatments, you SOAP, do discharges, etc. There is also financial scholarship for those summer courses so they end up basically costing you a minimal amount if anything at all.

How many surgeries a student gets is totally dependent on them so I cant get you a specific number, but if you do shelter rotation along with other opportunities that are available through clubs and the main core surgery classes you should be more than proficient in your basic surgeries by the time you graduate along with having done some more advanced procedure at least once at least on a cadaver. If a person really hates surgery they could do less, but probably still have a good dose of surgeries of various sorts and parts of the procedures between closings, LA opportunities, and even just doing the community rotation and didn't take shelter med where a lot of surgery happens.

As for capstone...personally I'm not sold on it at all. My friends at CSU spend their last month of summer studying this last summer while I'm still off enjoying break and doing cool internship things without worrying about an exam day 1. If you look at CSU vs WSU NAVLE pass rates there's esentially 0 difference. For what type of practitioner/how prepared you will be depends on you as a student and what you put into clinics=what you get out of it.
Our assistant dean used to be at CSU and has fought hard to keep anything like capstone to a minimum if that says anything. We also have several other faculty that have come to WSU from CSU and they all agree with the assistant dean. Take it for what it's worth. We do have a CPE exam year 3 before clinics as like a cumulative exam from year 1-3 but it's not a barrier to anything and more meant as a benchmark for administrators and to help make sure you are ready for 4th year putting together cases from beginning to end and helping continually improve the program.

I know it wasn't on your list but cost. Please no matter where you get offered acceptances when making your ultimate decision I urge you to put cost above all else unless you have a real good reason not to (ie parent dying of cancer). CSU is more expensive ~13k per VIN not including the living cost difference. That's if you don't have WICHE. If you are WICHE WSU is be far cheaper.

Feel free to pm me or ask more questions on here! Also see the WSU vs OSU thread for more info!

Paging @CoffeeQuestionMark for any other input on WSU
@danseth and @vetmedhead for CSU input.

 

[battie]

Also, wondering if CSU students feel the capstone exams truly help them be more prepared when graduating vs students that did not have capstone exams?

I'm just going to comment on capstone as Illinois has a similar exam (Milestone); the only difference is we take our Milestones in March of 2nd and 3rd year rather than at the beginning of the year.

They're essentially built to be similar to NAVLE and be analogous to Step I and II in human med school. Illinois marks 60% as passing (like NAVLE) and lets us take it 3 times to pass it. If you end up not passing, then you fail out. No one since 2013 when they started Milestone has failed out due to failing the Milestone. The other portion of our Milestone are our OSCEs, which other schools take as well (clinical skills exams)

I agree with @MixedAnimals77 that they do not prepare us for anything. I studied 0 hours for the written Milestone exam and passed with room to spare. I studied 2 hours for the OSCE and had to remediate 4 skills (2 of which were stupid mistakes that I honestly don't think studying for what have prevented me from doing). I will review for 3rd year Milestone cause my 2nd year is a blackhole.

I think it serves purely as a benchmark for the school to keep track of where we're at. So I would not put much positive worth for the capstone at CSU to convince you to go there. Now, if the CSU peeps say different, please take their word for it!! My comment was more to point out that these big standardized tests don't mean much as far as indicating 1) how well the school prepares you to practice or 2) how good of a doctor you will be.

 

[vetmedhead]

Now, if the CSU peeps say different, please take their word for it!!

We don't

I've heard better things about capstone 3 (which I won't take until May), but overall I haven't learned much from capstone other than how much anxiety I can fit into my body.

The summer cases are marginally more helpful since you have time to review things at your own pace before turning it in so you can mull things over, but the in class portion is mostly a waste of time imo

 

[ziggyandjazzy]

I'll give you my input as a previous CO resident that was accepted to CSU and chose WSU instead. I'll leave out any club stuff and just focus on classes-overall for most schools though alot of hands on opportunities occur through clubs years 1-3 depending on how the clinical year is structured.

WSU you start surgery course in your first semester. Once you complete that successfully then you can start surgeries. We have the the simulation center where you can practice any surgical procedure-you have access to day 1. I started cat neuters in December in year 1 once I completed my surgery course. You can do as advanced procedures as the advising veterinarian feels comfortable letting you do and of course within that specific state's practice laws. I've done leg amputations and eye nucleation, neuters, and model spay. I've also got to play around alot with the large animal repro models, laparoscopic equipment, endoscope, and ultrasound in open lab. Year 2 we do an anesthesia simulation lab where it's not live animals, but they run us through different anesthetic simulations to help prepare us for when things go awry before we actually touch a real patient that we are responsible to keep alive. Year 2&3 we also have communications which have simulated cases. Year 1 you have an animal handling class and then live animals for some identification questions in SA and LA anatomy. We also get to bring in pets during our neuro class in year 1. Animals get brought in year 2 as well for a lab in the neuro section again. Year 2 has less opportunities within the core curriculum for live animal hands on than any other year. Year 3 there are alot more hands on animal labs practicing medicine/surgery procedures before you enter clinics in 4th year.

Starting year 1 you also have intro to clinics that you have to complete and that requires x amount of hours (based on your semester&year) in the hospital on rotations. How much you're involved kind of depends on the rotation, case load for the day, procedures, and willingness to jump in etc. If you hang out around a service long enough they let you start to do things after awhile. You have access to the hospital day 1. A plus is it's connected to the buildings where year 1&2 classes are held makes going there super easy.

Elective wise we have colic team which you get called in to work up colic cases with clinicians. I got to help with colic surgery with that. We also have a phone tree for foaling season so you can get called in for ICU care of foals or to help work up a case with mares having difficulty foaling. Those are all electives though. There are other electives but those are the only ones year 1 and 2 that are specific to animal hands on involvement. You can also take elective classes over the summer year 1&2 if you want and you are basically a 4th year for that 2-6 week period. I know oncology, orthopedics, and large animal all offer the course-there may be more. You do treatments, you SOAP, do discharges, etc. There is also financial scholarship for those summer courses so they end up basically costing you a minimal amount if anything at all.

How many surgeries a student gets is totally dependent on them so I cant get you a specific number, but if you do shelter rotation along with other opportunities that are available through clubs and the main core surgery classes you should be more than proficient in your basic surgeries by the time you graduate along with having done some more advanced procedure at least once at least on a cadaver. If a person really hates surgery they could do less, but probably still have a good dose of surgeries of various sorts and parts of the procedures between closings, LA opportunities, and even just doing the community rotation and didn't take shelter med where a lot of surgery happens.

As for capstone...personally I'm not sold on it at all. My friends at CSU spend their last month of summer studying this last summer while I'm still off enjoying break and doing cool internship things without worrying about an exam day 1. If you look at CSU vs WSU NAVLE pass rates there's esentially 0 difference. For what type of practitioner/how prepared you will be depends on you as a student and what you put into clinics=what you get out of it.
Our assistant dean used to be at CSU and has fought hard to keep anything like capstone to a minimum if that says anything. We also have several other faculty that have come to WSU from CSU and they all agree with the assistant dean. Take it for what it's worth. We do have a CPE exam year 3 before clinics as like a cumulative exam from year 1-3 but it's not a barrier to anything and more meant as a benchmark for administrators and to help make sure you are ready for 4th year putting together cases from beginning to end and helping continually improve the program.

I know it wasn't on your list but cost. Please no matter where you get offered acceptances when making your ultimate decision I urge you to put cost above all else unless you have a real good reason not to (ie parent dying of cancer). CSU is more expensive ~13k per VIN not including the living cost difference. That's if you don't have WICHE. If you are WICHE WSU is be far cheaper.

Feel free to pm me or ask more questions on here! Also see the WSU vs OSU thread for more info!

Paging @CoffeeQuestionMark for any other input on WSU
@danseth and @vetmedhead for CSU input.

Did you do all those surgeries on cadavers or living animals?
This is interesting news to me because one of the biggest complaints about WSU when I toured was lack of surgery experience! I wonder if they have changed this recently.

 

[Caiter92]

Did you do all those surgeries on cadavers or living animals?
This is interesting news to me because one of the biggest complaints about WSU when I toured was lack of surgery experience! I wonder if they have changed this recently.

No, this is how it’s been since I started.

After you pass your first year surgery class, you’re allowed to do neuters for the shelter club TNR days. They’re once a month, and usually 1-2 first or second years can go. So not everyone will get to do them, but it’s an option.

Third year after you finish junior surgery, you can do spays one the same trips.

Fourth year, students are primary on surgeries done through community practice. It’s really dependent on the weeks you’re on though. When I was on there were only like three surgeries total, other weeks two surgeries are scheduled a day and everyone gets one or two surgery days. I have three shelter rotations planned fourth year, and at my first I had 25 surgeries in 6 days. So a pretty decent amount. My next two will probably be slower, but still. I’ll end up with a decent amount of surgeries.

We do only have one spay in the curriculum, but that’s pretty standard at most schools from what I can tell. There are plenty of other opportunities to get surgery experience 4th year and earlier if you want it. I know a lot of people who also did neuters and some spays through shelters before 4th year outside of school as well.

Edit to add: we only have one cadaver lab as part of the curriculum. Otherwise we have open lab twice a week you can go to, which has cadavers of client donated animals you can practice on.

 

[ziggyandjazzy]

No, this is how it’s been since I started.

After you pass your first year surgery class, you’re allowed to do neuters for the shelter club TNR days. They’re once a month, and usually 1-2 first or second years can go. So not everyone will get to do them, but it’s an option.

Third year after you finish junior surgery, you can do spays one the same trips.

Fourth year, students are primary on surgeries done through community practice. It’s really dependent on the weeks you’re on though. When I was on there were only like three surgeries total, other weeks two surgeries are scheduled a day and everyone gets one or two surgery days. I have three shelter rotations planned fourth year, and at my first I had 25 surgeries in 6 days. So a pretty decent amount. My next two will probably be slower, but still. I’ll end up with a decent amount of surgeries.

We do only have one spay in the curriculum, but that’s pretty standard at most schools from what I can tell. There are plenty of other opportunities to get surgery experience 4th year and earlier if you want it. I know a lot of people who also did neuters and some spays through shelters before 4th year outside of school as well.

Edit to add: we only have one cadaver lab as part of the curriculum. Otherwise we have open lab twice a week you can go to, which has cadavers of client donated animals you can practice on.

I was talking about her saying she had done amputations and eye enucleations, not neuters. I haven't heard of first year students getting to do these types of procedures their first year before.

 

[MixedAnimals77]

Did you do all those surgeries on cadavers or living animals?
This is interesting news to me because one of the biggest complaints about WSU when I toured was lack of surgery experience! I wonder if they have changed this recently.

They are also working to hopefully integrate mandatory dog neuters through like a sophomore surgery course but that's still a few years off if that ends up happening but a good handful of people are really advocating hard for it.

 

[Caiter92]

I was talking about her saying she had done amputations and eye enucleations, not neuters. I haven't heard of first year students getting to do these types of procedures their first year before.

Whoops. Those will be on cadavers in open lab, but still a really useful and cool opportunity to have. I don’t know many schools where you have the chance to do those things twice a week always.

 

[Caiter92]

They are also working to hopefully integrate mandatory dog neuters through like a sophomore surgery course but that's still a few years off if that ends up happening but a good handful of people are really advocating hard for it.

The main problem in implementing this is going to be our location. We’re so far away from everything that our spay dogs come from all over rural WA shelters. But I bet if they could find shelters willing to do what we do for spay block it would work. Too bad we’re not closer to Seattle. Allllll the stray cats there we could spay and neuter lol

 

[MixedAnimals77]

I was talking about her saying she had done amputations and eye enucleations, not neuters. I haven't heard of first year students getting to do these types of procedures their first year before.

I did all of them on cadavers in open lab first. Idk of any surgery course or anything elective wise persay that those procedures would be performed by a student in years 1-3 on a live animal-at any school for that matter. I cant speak to specific involvement of those procedures on 4th year rotations.

Personally I've gotten to assist on several of those surgeries on live animals through independent things. Idk imo they give you the tools as early as they can. It's what you decide to do with it that matters.

 

[MixedAnimals77]

The main problem in implementing this is going to be our location. We’re so far away from everything that our spay dogs come from all over rural WA shelters. But I bet if they could find shelters willing to do what we do for spay block it would work. Too bad we’re not closer to Seattle. Allllll the stray cats there we could spay and neuter lol

I know that's one of the things they're talking about, but also trying to increase the number of animals coming through for shelter med and that might be a way to up numbers even if it is just neuters. We had a long involved discussion with dernell about that at our last dean meeting integrated with the changes to spay block.

 

[desertdwelling]

I'll give you my input as a previous CO resident that was accepted to CSU and chose WSU instead. I'll leave out any club stuff and just focus on classes-overall for most schools though alot of hands on opportunities occur through clubs years 1-3 depending on how the clinical year is structured.

WSU you start surgery course in your first semester. Once you complete that successfully then you can start surgeries. We have the the simulation center where you can practice any surgical procedure-you have access to day 1. I started cat neuters in December in year 1 once I completed my surgery course. You can do as advanced procedures as the advising veterinarian feels comfortable letting you do and of course within that specific state's practice laws. I've done leg amputations and eye nucleation, neuters, and model spay. I've also got to play around alot with the large animal repro models, laparoscopic equipment, endoscope, and ultrasound in open lab. Year 2 we do an anesthesia simulation lab where it's not live animals, but they run us through different anesthetic simulations to help prepare us for when things go awry before we actually touch a real patient that we are responsible to keep alive. Year 2&3 we also have communications which have simulated cases. Year 1 you have an animal handling class and then live animals for some identification questions in SA and LA anatomy. We also get to bring in pets during our neuro class in year 1. Animals get brought in year 2 as well for a lab in the neuro section again. Year 2 has less opportunities within the core curriculum for live animal hands on than any other year. Year 3 there are alot more hands on animal labs practicing medicine/surgery procedures before you enter clinics in 4th year.

Starting year 1 you also have intro to clinics that you have to complete and that requires x amount of hours (based on your semester&year) in the hospital on rotations. How much you're involved kind of depends on the rotation, case load for the day, procedures, and willingness to jump in etc. If you hang out around a service long enough they let you start to do things after awhile. You have access to the hospital day 1. A plus is it's connected to the buildings where year 1&2 classes are held makes going there super easy.

Elective wise we have colic team which you get called in to work up colic cases with clinicians. I got to help with colic surgery with that. We also have a phone tree for foaling season so you can get called in for ICU care of foals or to help work up a case with mares having difficulty foaling. Those are all electives though. There are other electives but those are the only ones year 1 and 2 that are specific to animal hands on involvement. You can also take elective classes over the summer year 1&2 if you want and you are basically a 4th year for that 2-6 week period. I know oncology, orthopedics, and large animal all offer the course-there may be more. You do treatments, you SOAP, do discharges, etc. There is also financial scholarship for those summer courses so they end up basically costing you a minimal amount if anything at all.

How many surgeries a student gets is totally dependent on them so I cant get you a specific number, but if you do shelter rotation along with other opportunities that are available through clubs and the main core surgery classes you should be more than proficient in your basic surgeries by the time you graduate along with having done some more advanced procedure at least once at least on a cadaver. If a person really hates surgery they could do less, but probably still have a good dose of surgeries of various sorts and parts of the procedures between closings, LA opportunities, and even just doing the community rotation and didn't take shelter med where a lot of surgery happens.

As for capstone...personally I'm not sold on it at all. My friends at CSU spend their last month of summer studying this last summer while I'm still off enjoying break and doing cool internship things without worrying about an exam day 1. If you look at CSU vs WSU NAVLE pass rates there's esentially 0 difference. For what type of practitioner/how prepared you will be depends on you as a student and what you put into clinics=what you get out of it.
Our assistant dean used to be at CSU and has fought hard to keep anything like capstone to a minimum if that says anything. We also have several other faculty that have come to WSU from CSU and they all agree with the assistant dean. Take it for what it's worth. We do have a CPE exam year 3 before clinics as like a cumulative exam from year 1-3 but it's not a barrier to anything and more meant as a benchmark for administrators and to help make sure you are ready for 4th year putting together cases from beginning to end and helping continually improve the program.

I know it wasn't on your list but cost. Please no matter where you get offered acceptances when making your ultimate decision I urge you to put cost above all else unless you have a real good reason not to (ie parent dying of cancer). CSU is more expensive ~13k per VIN not including the living cost difference. That's if you don't have WICHE. If you are WICHE WSU is be far cheaper.

Feel free to pm me or ask more questions on here! Also see the WSU vs OSU thread for more info!

Paging @CoffeeQuestionMark for any other input on WSU
@danseth and @vetmedhead for CSU input.

Thank you so much for this wonderful insight!!!! At the CSU interviews, some current students thought capstone was the reason why their NAVLE pass rate was so high but if both schools have a similar pass rate then it sounds like the capstone doesn't necessarily help and may cause more anxiety than anything.

Open lab sounds so cool!!!! Do other schools have this or is WSU one of the only? Also, I love how connected WSU, the fact you can walk from your classroom to the hospital in the same building is so convenient!!

Cost, I seriously agree so much! I have received WICHE sponsorship from NM so with the 16k scholarship from WSU according to Stacy I could come out paying less than 100k for tuition, which is exceptional!!! And pretty unheard of when it comes to vet school right??? (at least as far as I know). Also, I am keeping Oregon as an option since it seems pretty comparable tuition wise!

As far as 4th-year clinic rotations at WSU, do 4th years have any kind of priority as far as doing the simple procedures?
A big complaint I have heard from CSU students/graduates is that when they were on clinic rotations they were always last in line behind the intern, resident, and clinician to do anything with the animal. Wondering if this is just part of how it goes when you are a 4th year or if other schools give more priority to giving 4th years some hands-on experience? Please correct me if I'm wrong CSU students, this is just what I've heard through the grapevine!

My mom and all the vets I have worked for here in NM went vet school at CSU, so of course, they are huge advocates for the school. Just wishing WSU wasn't so far away from NM. Anyway, lots to consider, both awesome schools just trying to figure out which would be best for me. Thanks for all the input

 

[MixedAnimals77]

Thank you so much for this wonderful insight!!!! At the CSU interviews, some current students thought capstone was the reason why their NAVLE pass rate was so high but if both schools have a similar pass rate then it sounds like the capstone doesn't necessarily help and may cause more anxiety than anything.

Open lab sounds so cool!!!! Do other schools have this or is WSU one of the only? Also, I love how connected WSU, the fact you can walk from your classroom to the hospital in the same building is so convenient!!

Cost, I seriously agree so much! I have received WICHE sponsorship from NM so with the 16k scholarship from WSU according to Stacy I could come out paying less than 100k for tuition, which is exceptional!!! And pretty unheard of when it comes to vet school right??? (at least as far as I know). Also, I am keeping Oregon as an option since it seems pretty comparable tuition wise!

As far as 4th-year clinic rotations at WSU, do 4th years have any kind of priority as far as doing the simple procedures?
A big complaint I have heard from CSU students/graduates is that when they were on clinic rotations they were always last in line behind the intern, resident, and clinician to do anything with the animal. Wondering if this is just part of how it goes when you are a 4th year or if other schools give more priority to giving 4th years some hands-on experience? Please correct me if I'm wrong CSU students, this is just what I've heard through the grapevine!

My mom and all the vets I have worked for here in NM went vet school at CSU, so of course, they are huge advocates for the school. Just wishing WSU wasn't so far away from NM. Anyway, lots to consider, both awesome schools just trying to figure out which would be best for me. Thanks for all the input

Yeah as far as NAVLE goes capstone doesn't impact it. Unfortunately alot of prevets are misinformed in that regard. A school has to keep an 80% pass rate to even keep accreditation so most schools have a pretty high NAVLE pass rate if you look at all AVMA accredited schools in the US. CSU had 98, 99, 95, 98, 91, and 94% the last 6 years. WSU had 99, 98, 99, 96, 99, and 100% passing rates with the first percentage given being 2019 and the last being 2014. 2020 results are not available as the second NAVLE cycle hasn't happened yet and they literally just got their results back for the first cycle this week.

For open lab, I know of other schools that do have variations of them-how different they are/what they offer will vary. It does seem though that our lab is pretty advanced/comprehensive in comparison to other schools. Our clinician and her team in charge of it is very motivated and we were the first veterinary school to be awarded for our simulation in healthcare (only previously given to human med type programs). You can find out more on our website if your interested in it or if you have more specific questions I'd be more than happy to answer. I try really hard to go to open lab when I can because I can practice almost any procedure before I even touch a live patient, but it's a very individual motivated opportunity.

Lol yeah the Arizonans love the fact that year 1&2 everything is connected to the teaching hospital especially with snow here. Year 3 you do have to go walk to another building outside for lectures but less than a 5 minute walk. Our communications center is the only other thing that is mandatory I believe that isn't like in immediate walking distance minus some large animal labs in year 3. It's more of a 10 minute walk up a hill and across the main road on campus.

Yeah currently WSU is one of the cheapest institutions and the lower you can keep it the better-your future self will thank you. That scholarship Stacey mentioned just covers the difference in funding from NM to IS tuition(just wanted to make sure that was said) I would definitely keep OSU on your list as well since they are both fairly competitive cost wise. The board of reagents for WSU was supposed to meet in November (but minutes still haven't posted). They were proposing charging for the summer session of clinical year which would bump your cost up some-but they said if it was approved C/O 2024 acceptances would be notified of the change when offers were sent out I believe. It still keeps us in like the bottom 8 or 9 for tuition costs when compared to other veterinary schools.

@Caiter92 will have to answer things about 4th year. Overall though I think at any institution with a teaching hospital the hierarchy is clinicians, residents, interns, 4th years, everyone else. But there is of course 4th years doing things, procedures, work ups to make sure you have skills to practice competently. I know we have to complete a certain % of a list of procedures by end of 4th year to graduate-they just changed the hosting site for that so us not in 4th year haven't had access to it yet last I checked. I know when I took my dog in on ER, the 4th year did all the work up and was asked questions as she did the work up from the intern, but my dog wasn't super critical though either like some patients. For example like a TPLO surgery you are not going to be the 1o surgeon at the hospital ever-it's for the specialists, but if you are on that case you are still in the OR learning things and taking care of more the pre/post op care from my understanding. Overall I have found all the services I have done intro to clinics on very willing to teach me. In exotics my friend and I baby sat a lizzard that needed to just chill in a bath. Oncology the resident showed us the case MRI etc and talked us through that. I got to help out with a colic surgery-we did an enema, wasn't glorious, but we did get to help some. Of course the amount of involvement at least from a non4th year perspective is largely dependent on your doctor you're with and then your comfortableness, experience, ability to answer questions etc.

I'm from CO so I totally understand what you are saying about people being huge advocates for CSU. I chose WSU over CSU because of cost even for me as a CO resident at the time. Do I miss home or being close? Sure, mostly because where I'm from in CO is flat I can see forever. Pullman has hills that I look around and all I see is another hill. It's my like one of my few complaints though. I talk to my parents quite often so I have support in that way. Honestly even if I was only 3-4 hours away the majority of the time I still probably wouldn't go home just because there's an exam that next day we are back in school, or there's a really cool club opportunity for me to go do instead, or I'm so tired from the week I just want to stay home and chill in my jammies. I personally don't go home over the week breaks, for me it's not worth the 200-300 to fly home for only 5 days essentially. I go home over the longer breaks though. My friend flies back to AZ any longer break chance she gets. Pullman does have an airport but flights are currently only to Seattle then catch your connection, but supposedly they are supposed to be adding flights to Denver (lowkey can't wait). The drive to Spokane's airport isn't awful though and it's usually cheaper. WSU really is a community imo. Yes each class has a different dynamic, but overall there is alot of support in many ways, not 100% like home, but pretty darn close. I met my best friends here. We have dinner every Sunday night because that's what one of the girls used to do with her family back home. We spend any holiday together that we aren't back with family. We trade off pet sitting when the other person is gone if we are here. What I'm getting at is don't let the distance discourage you from WSU or OSU if it saves you money in the end. Plus Ft. Collins is expensive (use the rent difference for flights )

My pm box is always open. There's always on thread as well. Check out the WSU/OSU form in this same thread if it comes down to those two!

 

[battie]

Sure, mostly because where I'm from in CO is flat I can see forever.

You're the only Coloradoan that I've ever heard that appreciates the flat half of Colorado.

 

[MixedAnimals77]

You're the only Coloradoan that I've ever heard that appreciates the flat half of Colorado.

I mean sure the mountains are nice to look at but i really love the flatness so I can see forever-which is what makes looking at the mountains at a distance nice. However the west part of CO like grand junction area-not as big of fan. Its flat but its ugly...unpopular opinion I'm sure

Eta: everytime I land in CO and get in the car I tell my parents how excited I am to see out

 

[battie]

unpopular opinion I'm sure

At this point, I dont disagree!! I feel the eastern plains are under appreciated and the mountains overhyped!