Funny Quotes From Boards Practice Questions And Lectures

Toxic plants have a tendency to show up inside animals’ stomachs and therefore, toxic plants also have a tendency to show up on veterinary board exams.

The contents of the cecum are dry and cheesy (much like board review study material)

Ok, admittedly this is a tough question, but we do not want to make them too easy.

"Ok ladies and gents, it is time to beat to DEATH the cranial. cruciate. ligament. rupture. All right this lecture might go a little longer than others, but it's going to be worth it, it's going to be glorious."*
 
"So at this point you're probably on the verge of tears, and you no longer want to ever think about neurology again, and you're probably considering a career as a baker."

Suture material can be very exciting if you let it be.

"In this PowerLecture we are going to KILL patellar luxations." 

Remember: with hypothyroidism dogs become fat, lazy, heat seeking missiles of skin disease.
 
"Okay everyone, let's conquer pelvic fractures once and for all." 

UV light is not thought to play a significant role in development of these tumors as they tend to occur in the area where the sun does not shine.

Sorry, it's a human health question, but it is a potential biochemical warfare agent and the public expects veterinarians like you to know this.  

Of note, all Clostridia are categorized as gram positive organisms with the exception of Clostridium piliforme, which is gram negative (yes, Microbiology is confusing). 

Cryptococcus is also not a contagious disease (do NOT confuse this with cryptosporidium, which is very contagious and zoonotic as several of my colleagues can attest to profusely). 

This is the perfect random question. The fun fact to remember is that Cornish rex, British short hair, and Devon rex cats are predisposed to having Type B blood type. 

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*In  case you are wondering, the ones I put quotations around are verbal quotes from recorded lectures, while the others are copy-pasted from the answer pages of multiple choice questions.

To All The Unsung Blog Posts - Part 2

More not-quite-stories from final year!

- Imaging roster was known as "radi-holiday" and "radiation vacation." It was supposed to be a total laid-back easy peasy week. Totally not the case. The surgeon most notorious out of all surgeons for making students cry and break had recently decided to forget about surgery and do a radiology residency. Also, there was nothing more boring in all of final year than standing around for three hours in a dark room with 5 other students, no sitting room, watching the two residents painstakingly repeat and record every step of an abdominal ultrasound that should have taken twenty minutes.

- During equine rotation, some of our days were very slow, and one of the vets had a horse competing in a race, so the residents actually took us on an outing to a day at the races. We went out in one of the university's minivans, bought fried food, watched them show the horses, cheered for ours, talked about polo, and huddled together from the cold, miserable, windy weather.

- I planned to use for a blog post title: "And Today's Wardrobe Options Are Scrubs or Scrubs."

- I can't remember specifically what the issue was, but I believe it was regarding the horrible hours and work conditions in the small animal hospital. I have a paragraph from a started-and-abandoned blog post that goes: "I of course being the confrontational go-getter that I am, made sure something got done about it by writing a mildly worded email to our class rep... after her prompting me to do so."

-  My very last day of surgery rotation ever, a Friday, saw a dog come in at 3:30pm that had been hit by a car. I did the initial exam, and then stayed with the dog as he was stabilised and transferred to anaesthesia. Surgery started at 7pm. I got home and had dinner at 10:30pm.

- One of my last rosters was the SPCA. Most people had this earlier in the year, which would have been much more valuable, because you cover some surgery basics and get to try a few speys and neuters. During my week, they were doing a "desexathon." Free or low-cost (can't remember) desexing for pet cats in the area, to help control stray populations. Which is very worthwhile, because at least half of them were pregnant, and with 30-50 speys in a day, that's a lot of unwanted kittens. The sucky part is that because these were owned pets, the shelter wouldn't let us do anything. So I spent the entire week standing in a corner watching them do speys. Bear in mind this is a month before I qualified as a vet.

To All The Unsung Blog Posts - Part 1

I had many interesting ideas for posts that never got written. Here's a slew of the most interesting snippets that never made it to the light.

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- At a small animal clinic, during one exam there was this very cute little kid who was really into learning about everything that was going on. The vet had a kiddie stethoscope to give him, and he spent the rest of the exam listening to everything--the dog, his parents, himself, the table. The first time he put it on, he put it in his ears backwards, and after being corrected, was very concerned about getting it right every time after that. He kept interrupting to ask "Is it on right?" before listening to another inanimate object.

- One of my classmates fostered a paralysed dachshund that came through the hospital. The dog had a little mini wheelchair, and hung out with us in the student lounge. She was very friendly and would wheel around and get stuck on things.

- While on emergency rotation, a dog came in critically ill. I spent several hours with the team, participating in a small part of monitoring while they performed lots of dramatic procedures. At one point, I got sent to run down the hall to the lab, to see if we had results back on clotting times. They weren't back, and in the 5 minutes I was gone, the dog died.

- We toured a deer farm and a pig farm, which were really cool, but don't make for interesting stories. Though one of the techniques at the pig farm to tell if the feed mixer is doing a good job, is to drop in a bunch of sprinkles and look at their distribution in the final product.

- To prepare us for dealing with clients, we had to break into groups with an actor assigned to each group. We had several scenarios, and had to practice things like delivering bad news or dealing with an angry client. Some of the actors were apparently quite difficult! All of this was recorded so we could study it later. My group was a bunch of pansies and nobody would volunteer, so I ended up going twice.

- On our public health roster, we took tours of several meatworks--beef, lamb, and poultry facilities. While much of my class hated this, I actually found it fascinating. Everything was so clean and orderly. Plus we got to walk through the chiller, where the stripped carcasses hang on slow conveyor belts like we were in a horror movie.

- I'm not sure I ever talked about our naked calendar, one of the fundraisers for Halfway Day. I'm not sure what I did with the photos from my group, but you can check out the current Barely There calendar website for general photos, and maybe even support the current third years! Updated every year by the new class.

I Thought I Didn't Want To Do Blogging

I love the irony that my last post was all about how I had free time again and was promising to catch up on all my blog posting. Cue a full year of no blog posting.

I had somewhat of an internal struggle. I am a bit obsessive about things, and I felt it crucial to get down every interesting event that happened to me in vet school. Part of that is because this blog functions like a journal, and hey, I want to remember all this stuff that happened to me. Most of it is because I'm obsessive and don't like things getting left out.

The problem that arose from this is I developed a huge list of topics and stories to write about, backlogged by over a year. Funny lab stories from 3rd year when I was in the middle of 5th year. Things that happened in 4th year finals that had been just the other week when I put them on my list, and ended up four months down the road by the time I got to them. It was unpleasant to deal with. I got to resent it, and hated writing blog posts, because it meant slogging through months of backlogged ideas, and typing up a story I'd already grown bored with. So I figured, if I hate blogging so much, I shouldn't force myself to do it.

I also tried to rationalise this further. One of my main inspirations for starting the blog in the first place was so I'd have a place to write down funny or touching stories when I got out into practice. Quirky clients, weird cases, positive things I want to remember. Then I thought, well, what about client confidentiality? I live in a pretty rural area. Maybe I'd get in trouble with work, or with clients, or with the state, if someone figured out I typed up a story about them. Never mind that I read a slew of other veterinary blogs written by other veterinarians, who don't have a problem, because things are kept very vague.

Not to mention I spent several months living with my parents or my husband's parents, looking for work. No stories to be found there, really.

So. what happened? Well, as you do, I wandered back and started reading some of my old stories, after it came up in conversation. And I started thinking... hey, some of these are funny. I'm glad I wrote these down. I'd forgotten about this or that. Maybe it's worth keeping track of these things, after all.

Now there's the risk of me obsessively wanting to catalogue every unusual experience I've had over the past six months, but I'm going to make a new rule: write down stories as I think of them, with no regard to chronology, and with no pressure. That probably seems obvious to you, and I'm sure it's how actual effective bloggers operate, but my little OCD brain needs to be given permission to not write a blog like a freaking textbook.

Here's hoping for a future of consistent posting and interesting tales!

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.