I Finished Vet School Today

At 3:30pm, I walked out of my final exam of vet school, and left the small animal hospital for the last time (because I handed in my access card immediately afterwards)!

Here's what I said on facebook:

 THAT'S IT LAST EXAM VET SCHOOL DONE.

Vet school has become such a state of being it's hard to imagine actually being finished. No more lectures, treatments, missing lunch and dinner at the small animal hospital, falling asleep in rounds, running back and forth between radiology/surgery/ICU, getting cold and wet in a paddock, trying to make sense of the insides of a cow, pretending to know something about horses, hesitantly checking ESS feedback, endless hours at the large animal teaching unit, dressing up for all the costume parties, writing presentations practically every week, ten thousand assignments, walking 3-legged dogs in circles, yelling at Cornerstone while trying to do paperwork, struggling to get red book signatures, cluelessly palpating muddy sheep, oral exams, and a hundred other things.

I can actually sleep and have meals and hobbies for a change. No more sitting around studying every night, or feeling guilty about not studying every night (for a few days at least...) Phew, I can't believe it's actually over!

Now that I have time, I promise to update the blog and fill you in on exams and rosters and everything exciting that's been happening. I may sneakily add posts into the "past" so they fit chronologically. I have so many notes and experiences to catalogue!

It's been a full MONTH of studying for me, and it's not over yet. I still have to hardcore study for the next two weeks, then drive to Auckland for the seven hour computer based North American Licensing Exam. But then at long last I can breathe a sigh of relief, visit the South Island, and fly home and see my dogs and family!

And, let's not forget the most important part:

After five years, I am now a veterinarian.

Just Another Day on Necropsy

Warning: Posts relating to necropsy week are generally not for the faint of heart.

When we do a post-mortem examination, naturally we have to record what we found, which involves making notes on a blue sheet with boxes for each body system. My classmates tend to do this afterwards, over lunch, which is probably pretty sensible, as you'll see. I'm too paranoid that I'm going to completely forget something important, so I have to write things down as I think of them.

Today, once we removed a section of ribs, we set them down to one side and got to work removing the heart and lungs. As an aside, we had a really fascinating case. The dog had suffered from a bloody nose for about a month, which had gotten worse until the owners decided to euthanise. The abdomen was looking a bit "pot bellied" as well, but the dog was perfectly bright, happy, and eating well. However, when we opened the abdomen, a massive liver tumour practically jumped out at us. When we checked the nasal cavity (by sawing the face in half through the nose, by the way), it turned out to have, as suspected, and totally unrelated, a nasal tumour as well. Unlucky dog, eh?

So while we were busy getting excited about all the pathology, it turns out we had set the slab of ribs and muscles and fat right on top of our blue sheet. Whoops. Eventually, we noticed this, and when we picked the ribs up, the sheet went with it. I tried to pull the sheet off, but it wouldn't come. The fat was stuck fast. Pull pull pull, yank yank yank. Ummm, there's a giant mass of flesh stuck to half our paper.

Somehow, I managed to free our sheet without tearing it, leaving a large wet area around one quadrant. Blood and goop is a pretty normal part of a pathologist's life, so it probably doesn't matter apart from me feeling self-conscious. I proceeded to make the sheet worse and worse through the course of the lab by writing down notes and measurements with increasingly bloody gloves.

My partner and I looked at each other at the end of the morning and debated whether we should rewrite it, but there wasn't much time before the afternoon tutorial, so we figured, "Nahh, it probably doesn't matter." It planted the seed of doubt, however, and after the tutorial had finished, we both started thinking, "Well, maaaaaybeee we should rewrite it. Everyone else's PM reports are all pristine and neat." However, after a brief search, we discovered the clinician had already taken our pile of papers. Oh well.

Psychological Effects of the Small Animal Hospital

Hand touches faucet when washing hands - Crap, have to start over!

Barking dogs - What noise?

Strange ticking noise following me around all day - Oh right, I wear a watch now.

7:30am start - Wow, what a nice sleep-in.

End of the day - How many spots of dog drool got on my pants today? I don't have enough black pants if I can't wear this one again tomorrow.

Any repetetive motion such as grating cheese - Started counting by accident

Can't remember how to give directions - Go to the uh... the more distal part of the road...

Cell phone or tablet vibrates - I'm getting paged!

Dinner time - I have lettuce in the fridge. I guess I'll have lettuce for dinner. (Credit to my friend for that one).

Weekend - I have all this extra time today. Don't I have hobbies for days like this? I can't remember what they are.

Eating finger food - I washed my hands a thousand times today so no need to worry about contracting something.

Unusual animal comes into hospital - I want a pet parrot.

Introducing someone - Amber is a 23 year old female entire vet student with a history of lethargy and exercise intolerance.

Faced with life problem such as computer dying - Time to form a problem list and differential diagnoses.

There'a A Guinea Pig In Hospital

There's a guinea pig in hospital that's been a regular visitor. Apparently her owner loves her too much, and continues to feed her a mountain of fruit and vegetables despite repeated emphasis on the fact that guinea pigs require a large amount of roughage in their diet, a fact supported by the multiple nearly $1000 hospital bills. So once again, the guinea pig has been hospitalised, diagnosed, and put on meds. The upside to this is there's a guinea pig in hospital.

My reaction went something like this: Walks through ICU doors. "...going for ultrasound later todaaaaoooooohhh guinea pig!"

My excitement resulted in the intern handing me the guinea pig to hold for a while, which I was quite happy to do. She's a brown, smooth-coated piggie with an adorable Spanish name. The intern immediately walked away to do something, and other people entered the ICU and had a similar reaction to myself (including a clinician). Unfortunately, since I was holding the guinea pig, I started getting asked questions about the history and treatments. Of course, I had no clue, so I quickly found the intern and gave the guinea pig back.

That night I was on evening treatments, so I made a beeline to the ICU so I could be the one to do the guinea pig. It involved basically the same thing as any other animal, but tiny version. The heart rate was a bazillion beats per minute and their little bums are teeny tiny for trying to take a temperature. The other thing I had to do, since she was admitted for gastrointestinal hypomotility (I think), was count all the poops to make sure she was producing an adequate number per hour. So I stood there gathering all the guinea pig poops out of the cage and then counting them one by one. There were fifty, in case you were wondering.

Fifth Year In A Nutshell

Yesterday I got to sleep in and get home early. I didn't get up until 6:45am and I got home at 5:30pm.

I still fell asleep on the couch. At 7:30pm.