Library Assignment

Some professor or other decided that we need practice using the library and its databases, so that we'll be familiar with doing literature searches and whatnot when we're big bad vets. It's a reasonable aim, since most of my classmates probably didn't read a hundred stupid journal articles for their undergraduate senior project like I did. However, the assignment they gave us needs to be sorely rethought.

What we were supposed to do was pick any anatomical structure we wanted, then look up four journal articles about it. We were supposed to write a nice little essay giving a description of the structure and its normal function, and devote a small section to clinical signs of disease and dysfunction. Sounds nice when I put it like that, doesn't it? The catch is that we had to use no more than 150 words. One hundred fifty words! Four references, not counting any textbooks we needed to supplement the anatomy description. 

No more than 25% of the essay was supposed to be about the disease part. 25% of 150 words. 

The thing about primary literature, is that people doing studies don't bother describing their structure of interest, because it's a waste of space. You're not going to be looking up a study of drug effects on the development of auditory ossicles if you have no clue what the fuck an auditory ossicle is. Most literature assumes you actually know the stuff that you were supposed to learn in med school and can easily reference in the textbooks. Studies are going to be about pathology, clinical signs, drugs, that sort of thing. So in practicality, you end up with four references for 25% of a 150 word essay. Not to mention that the citations are included in the word count.

To make matters worse, we have to peer review four other people's (anonymous) essays and hand them back in. Supposedly, by marking someone else, we'll learn how to better improve our own writing. What were they thinking? How could anyone possibly learn anything from a 150 word assignment? Everyone was too busy trying to squeeze unnecessary words out to worry about writing well. The result was choppy sentences and truncated thoughts. This isn't helping us learn to write concisely, and it's not helping us critically assess each other because there's just not much you can say about something so short.

We were supposed to include the word count on the page. I had 151 words and said my count was 150, no big deal. Three of the ones I had to grade also said their word count was 150 words. One of them was a line or two longer than the others. Hmmm.

I counted to be sure. They had 160 words. Nice try.

Describing a Place

Topography sort of means "describing a place," from its Latin roots, and in medicine it means looking at and feeling the surface of the patient and knowing what's up underneath. It's the reason I haven't posted hardly any stories lately (I had Mr Vet saved up to post when things got dire), because it took the form of an oral exam this past week.

The exam consisted of an examiner, a scribe, a dog, and me. The dog's name was Merlin and he looked kind of like this (picture from google):

The first thing I did was pet the dog. The first thing I was actually supposed to do was pick out four cards from different piles, and each one had two questions on it. The way it worked was he would name a structure, and I would palpate it and describe anything I could think of--nearby structures and landmarks, function, clinical significance. The entirety of anatomy examinable, both this year and last, and more than two weeks of study. It took about 10 minutes.

Unfortunately I wasn't just nervous, I was embarrassed about being so nervous. I petted the dog a lot, it didn't help.

The upshot is that now you can pretty much point anywhere on a dog, and I can tell you all kinds of shit about whatever it is you pointed at. 

PS: It is way easier to find the femoral pulse on an alive dog than on a dead one. I was unduly surprised when I felt it.

Mr. Vet

Every year, the third years celebrate "halfway day," which, as you might guess, is the day they are exactly half way through with their degree. This tends to involve a big trip with the whole class going off to do something crazy like sky diving. Halfway day is in the second semester, and they spend pretty much the entire first semester fundraising for it. Doubtless, I will have many stories involving halfway day fundraising, considering the sheer number of events associated with it, and next year my class is the one that's going to be saving up.

One of the first major fundraisers this year was an annual event called Mr. Vet.

You may not be aware, but male vets are an endangered species. In our class of 100, I believe there's less than 20 guys. So in a celebration of manliness, each class votes two representatives to enter the Mr. Vet contest. Since the first years don't start until second semester, that's four classes and eight contestants. There are three stages: formal wear, swim wear, and talent. The contestants are also given a steady supply of alcohol throughout the whole event. They are judged by a panel of vet faculty; if I remember correctly there were two girls and four guys. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a steady supply of alcohol too.

So the show started at 8pm. I got there with my friends at 7:30 and we had to sit way in the back (these are all pictures other people took). I had to sit on my feet and crane my neck a lot and I'm pretty sure I couldn't see a lot of the funny stuff, such as their footwear or anything that happened near the ground.

Since this was the first time for our class, our guys didn't really know what to expect and ended up overshadowed by the upper years. For the formal wear, one had a dress and a beard, and the other was smart enough to give beer bottles to all the judges. Some of the other years were a bit funnier, putting on accents or just having more interesting outfits, but overall the formal wear was just a warm up. One of them thought he was a comedian and reenacted a Rowan Atkinson skit, but he really couldn't pull it off well. Another, not in the picture below, went on in fluorescent green tight pants and sparkly blue jacket, and flirted with the MC (this is important for later).

The swim wear section was much more interesting. One of our guys was the only one awesome enough to wear a bikini, but frankly all of them were hilarious. Almost all the acts included stripping, often of a completely ridiculous outer layer, and some poor dancing. Rowan Atkinson sketch guy got a lot of cheers for his daring G-string attire and triathalon dash and bike up the centre aile before stripping down. They each got to pick a music track to play when they came on, and I'm sorry I can't remember what any of them were now. You can just take my word that it was funny.

The talent section was the longest and had some of the best acts. Unfortunately there was a very marked trend of decreasing quality. The first guy up did an elaborate medley of songs, accompanying himself on the keyboard and with a guitar buddy, in which he had reworded the songs to fill them with vet jokes, references to faculty, and having an overall gay theme. This particular contestant was the same that had the tight green pants in the formal wear, and was now dressed in a nice pink outfit.

I don't remember the order exactly, but one of the next contestants did the classic can't-play-an-instrument-but-actually-is-really-good-at-it spiel. He started off with the good old "I found this violin in the attic and learned Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," played it horribly, got cheered for an encore, then of course played some popular Bach or other beautifully and dexterously. From there, the acts just went downhill. There was a guitarist and a guy that sang karaoke, and a lot of bad dancing. Rowan Atkinson fellow did another awkwardly unfunny rendition, and the crowd screamed for more of his near-nudity instead. One guy just kind of bounced around without much aim; he probably had a few too many to drink at that point. The upside to that is that one of the anatomy professors had also had a few too many, and the contestant actually got the judge up bouncing around drunkenly on stage with him.

The drunk professor is the one on the right. I think this picture is a good indication of the quality of some of the talent acts.

Our guys were the last to go. The first one, obviously smashed, called up a girl to the stage and gave her a little dance. Having set the standard of bribing the judges, they were very displeased when he didn't return with a second round of beer, and his score suffered accordingly.

When it was time for the second of our representatives, no one had high expectations for a grand finale. Amazingly, he surprised us. There was some set up involved: a table, bottles, some other stuff. Then he comes out in his sad clown costume, and actually does some fancy slight-of-hand. He did some juggling, and a lot of tricks with open bottles and fluid-filled cups. He handled them deftly, filling cups, transferring liquid, and taking plenty of drinks in between. He set a few things on fire and juggled those around too.

Then--then it was time for the final judging. Time to pick a Mr. Vet! Also, the two woman judges were in charge of selecting the second place "Hot Damn."

The winner of Mr. Vet 2011 was tight-pants gay-joke guy (5th year), who was also my personal favorite (I know I don't have a specific picture of him, but there are enough other pictures). The Hot Damn was none other than Rowan Atkinson guy (3rd year), considering that when he had his clothes on, all the judges could hear from the crowd was, "Take it off! Take it off!"

Then, of course, it wouldn't be a vet event without random nudity and streakers at the end.

Surgery Crossword

Across

2 Most common malignant primary tumour seen in the canine spleen (16)

6 Group of antimicrobials that includes enrofloxacin & ciprofloxacin (16)

7 Deliberate, surgical fusion of a joint (11)

9 Hindlimb nerve originating from L6-S1 spinal segments (7)

10 Minimally invasive surgery using a camera to evaluate the abdominal cavity (11)

11 Attachment of the stomach to the abdominal wall to prevent GDV (10)

12 Type of passive drain, and suburb in Auckland (7)

13 The presence of lymph & triglyceride fats within the chest cavity (11)

17 Region of the forelimb that consists of the radius & ulna (12)

18 Abnormal angulation of a bone or joint laterally, away from the midline (6)

19 Group of fluids containing large molecules that remain within the vascular space. Includes plasma and hetastarch.

20 Short section of small intestine that has an antimesenteric vessel (5)

Down

1 Condition seen most often in older labradors, characterized by respiratory stridor (9, 9)

3 Section of a long bone between the physis and diaphysis (10)

4 Suture material consisting of a single strand (12)

5 Surname of the inventor of the TPLO procedure (6)

8 Tissue partition that separates the two sides of the chest (11)

14 The most proximal point of the ulna (9)

15 Chondrodystrophic breed of dog with highest incidence of Type intervertebral disc extrusion (9)

16 Paired cartilage structure within the stifle that contributes to stability, but frequently injured following cranial cruciate ligament rupture (8)

Professors: Class Should Be Over Now

Our professor for renal physiology was pretty good, except for one huge pet peeve of mine. She always, consistently, without fail, every time went over the time limit. I don't just mean two or three minutes, I'm talking five to eight minutes over.

This is of course a nuisance because we have to get to our next class, and it's especially bad if you need to run a quick errand, such as grabbing something from your locker in the vet tower or getting a drink from the student shop. What really gets me though is that I found I often fill up two sheets of paper, both sides, in the space of a lecture. In a lecture like physiology with a lot of information, I will be right at the end of my second sheet of paper when those fifty minutes are up.

What happened to me was that every single one of her lectures went over time enough that I couldn't fit all the extra info into the margins of my page. I had to either write really, really small and/or cramped, or start a new page. I hate starting a new page when all I will have is a paragraph at the top on one side. I hate it!

This flaw almost drove me mad. It happened every time.