Quick Update

It's been a busy past few weeks, thus been light on the blogging. Here's the highlights:

- Survived equine ICU! The weekend was fairly relaxed and we spent some time in the sun. I escaped Sunday evening to...

- Head to Wales for a week. More EMS, which is great during lambing time. Did some sheep caesars, assisted on a cattle caesar, plus the usual array of consultations, surgery and banter.

- Now back to Edinburgh to start the final rotation on farm. Day 1 has been great! There's usually 1 person per group that can hit sheep veins, and turns out that's me.

Now it's sunny, so I'm off to go and revise outside somewhere. Only 8 weeks (ish) until finals. A truly terrifying though.

Back To Work

The holidays are over, and it's back to uni for another 11 weeks until the next break. So far it's been a short week - with the snow very few clients are coming in for the basic things. Today there were more than a few clinicians off leaving hordes of students without cases and they *unfortunately* had to go home. Very sad.

This week is oncology. Some people complain it's not a day 1 competency, but it's useful to getting knowledge about the kinds of drugs used in practice and what to expect from both the owners and the animals. The obvious ethical debates are going on as well. Should we be treating these animals as we do? Or should we just decide on euthanasia at all times? Difficult one.

ICU part 2

*Names changed to protect the guilty*

Sooooo....Our one night when SpanielDog is off constant monitoring because he has no chest drains...

First a paracetamol toxicity dog. Not too bad. Fairly simple. Quite pissed off as back to constant monitoring. Just need one night off!!

Become happy that dog is not on constant monitoring. May get to sleep after all.

Some shitty little Yorkie with porto-systemic shunt (4yo!) decided to have a fit at 6pm. Resident puts it in ICU for seizure watch. Not impressed. Back to constant monitoring. I get the 1-4.30am shift.

Dog walking takes from 2030-2200. Ortho decide to take a case to surgery (after ordering/eating pizza for themselves) and takes the nurse and Laura away. Just me and Jane walking.

I'm having to do the midnight walks/meds with Rachel. This will not take long. I will then stay up for my constant monitoring shift and cover Laura's if she is a) too tired or b) still in surgery.

Grand total sleep - from midday til 1400. And maybe 0430-0600 if I'm lucky. I may become homicidal if the weekend is like this, except then I'd have to do all the work!

ICU Part 1

Not too sure if I'll have to update this as much as I'd like, but I'll try.

At the moment I'm covering the small animal ICU here at uni. This involves two separate weeks of night and day work. Currently I'm on the night shift which involves working from 4pm until 10am the next day. It's quite a long shift! Especially the tutorial at the end.

It is said that a difficult ICU week can turn even the most reasonable of people into a homicidal crazy person at the best of times, and I can see why! Most of out time is spent sitting about watching animals all night, or walking everything in the hospital at least 4 times. It does not require a lot of mental power, but it gets tiring.

Tonight I'm on the 0430 constant monitoring shift. And I have to do rounds at midnight. So maybe 4 hours sleep if I'm very lucky and the damn pager doesn't go off. Ah well.

Beginning Of The End

Well everyone survived Wales (mostly) and now it's time for final year to being. Some very kind people have helped out telling me what's expected and what not to panic about.

Next week: small animal orthopaedics.

For now: just enjoy life and prepare the best I can.

Wish me luck. I'm going in!

Final Year

It's been 2 weeks since the results of the equine and exotics exam came out and sometimes I still don't believe it, I have to go back and check I've passed, because all this means I'm in final year of vet school! With any luck there is only 1 year between me and the wide world.

I was talking to a friend from home yesterday. We hadn't spoken for a while and she had no idea what I was up to. There were quite a few people who doubted that I'd ever get in to study vet medicine, and some who thought I wouldn't cope if I did get it. I know pride goes before a fall, but I pleased with what I've accomplished so far.

Next year is when it gets serious - rotations all day every day. We switch topics every week and are expected to be on the ball with everything. It's going to be hard work, but hopefully it will be fun. My final year group is fun, we seem to get on OK, so I can't wait. In fact the waiting is the hardest part.

I start ICU cover in just under 2 weeks, but until then I'm fairly free. Depending on what others are up to I may go to Wales for a bit, go climb or just be lazy. It's odd having free time...

Revisin

It goes badly. For some reason equine and exotics doesn't seem to be sticking too well. Probably because I never actually intend to go anywhere near a horse in my professional career, and definitely never plan to operate on one.

Ah well. Back to it.

Zoo Trip

I had an amazing experience yesterday - I was chatting to a lecturer I know about exotics work after our lecture and somehow got invited to go and assist her at the zoo!

Our first task was to sedate and examine a hog deer with an abscess on his face. To do this we needed to first dart the animal to get close enough to give more drugs. Fun! I was lead through all of the equipment and drugs involved, and then briefed on my task - anaesthetic monitoring for the procedure.

It all went fairly smoothly as the abscess was lanced and radiographs taken of his head to look for signs of dental disease. Unfortunately it looks like he may have to be knocked out again to get a tooth removed to stop the problem. Photos when I can find them!

We spent a few hours checking out various other animals around the zoo, my favourite being the rhinos again. I was tasked with distraction duty (food!) whilst the vets examined an injury to his horn, trimmed bits and flushed it all out. The rhinos are brilliant, I love being close to them as they are so big but can be very gentle when hand fed.

I'd love to go back again, but first we have a few exams and the Easter holidays. Fingers crossed for next term!

Teaching

As part of our course we are expected to teach the other years when we eventually get to final year, a prospect that terrifies most of us. We not only have to know our subject, but pretty much anything else that is going on as well, for example we may be presenting equine ortho cases and be asked questions about neurology or anatomy. I guess it's good practice for finals!

I decided to get some practice in this week and went along to help the 2nd year students with animal handling and some 3rd year students with suturing and hand-washing. We mainly covered the basics of dog handling - breed, age, sex, restraint for blood samples, tape muzzles and how to give a tablet. Some people didn't have a clue which seemed really odd to me, although I guess my inability to handle horses must surprise some people.

These things become second nature in the later years, especially when you get to see practice - they won't be very impressed if you can't handle a dog for a blood sample. Some people got the idea fairly quickly, others took their time.

Overall I think it was useful for everyone. It was good revision for me, although I may have developed bad habits in the past few years. Good luck with the handling exams 2nd years!

Motivation

It's nearly the end of term and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to focus and actually do some work. We have an exam in under a week and I really need to do some revision but it just doesn't really feel real yet. Just getting bored of the constant sitting in lectures learning stuff that just isn't that interesting for me.

Post-exam I'm off to see the tortoise post-hibernation checks which could be quite exciting, then covering ICU for the evening. Then back to Wales for 3ish weeks of EMS, so hopefully some fun stories. Just need to survive the week.

Busy week

Another long one! For some reason things start to pick up towards the end of term giving us more information and less time to revise before the exams. It doesn't make much sense to me, but then again nor do a lot of things.

In just over 2 weeks, after a whole load of lectures, a few practicals and 2 exams I'll be heading back to Wales to work in practice again. It's lambing time at the moment and things are fairly swamped so hopefully there will be a great chance to learn new things and practice the old things such as a sheep caesar, but this time with new knowledge.

We had the chance to practice our farm animal clinical examination this week - possibly the only chance before the exam after Easter. I found the clinical findings were fairly easy but my main problem lies with the more basic knowledge - the breed and ageing an animal. Time to resit the old animal husbandry notes I think. And I finally found the pre-scapular lymph nodes in sheep!

Over half way!

I've just had to work it out and we are over half way through the term! This is great is some respects, there are no more horse lectures, and really bad in other respects, such as there being no more horse lectures. I don't miss them at all, but I wish I knew more and had more time to learn more.

Vets from Wales have been complaining that I've been away too long and are asking when I return too! It seems that they only want me for my innate ability to repel phone calls when I'm on call with them, but still it's lambing time and there are many things to be learned still. Can't wait for my first sheep caesar of the year. If I can remember how they are done...

Not that it is the end of term yet. There is a lot more work to be done before we get there, and very little time to relax.

Organised

I'm all sorted for Christmas for a change! Trains are booked, EMS placement knows I'm coming and what time. I have somewhere to stay. I even have 2 Christmas dinners sorted :D

Even more worrying is that I'm also getting through the revision weeks before the actual exam. This is practically unheard of, although in 3 weeks I will have just finished the exam on all the farm animal species - cow, sheep, goat, llama, bird, fish, pig all in one lovely block. As with the cat and dog course I'm mildly terrified that my entire education for cattle has been and gone, now I just need to practice things I've learned in the field with someone very competent standing over my shoulder.

Oh and tomorrow I get to borrow BD for a bit, so there may be fun photos of our adventures if camera battery doesn't give up again.

Morphine Mk2

Well turns out I was mostly making it up. A quick email to a nice ambulance bloke informed me that it's used in humans with GI conditions, and apparently used in vet circles too. It does stop gut motility in case anyone was wondering. And may cause vomiting which raises intra-cranial pressure. And cow's don't have opioid receptors in the their spinal cords. But apart from that it's all fun and shiny!

Now I have to find something else to do. Possibly revise for the exams in 4 weeks. Bugger.

Bad Day

Yesterday was particularly poor. Everything I did seemed to go fairly wrong at uni, although I managed to actually do some work for a change.

First we had an anaesthesia tutorial when we work in groups to sort out a problem - in this case how to assess and fix a cat post-RTA. Some members of the group were being a little difficult (to be generous) and we weren't given enough information to formulate the best plan. Even so it wasn't the best work I've done and was a little demoralising after I was eventually starting to feel like I knew stuff.

In the afternoon there was a farm animal practical where again I basically knew nothing. I wasn't alone in feeling this. It wasn't helped by having a large group and again similar group members to the tutorial.

I'm getting less and less tolerant of people these days. It could be that I haven't done any decent exercise for over 2 weeks now. It could also be that we are getting closer to final year and I realise some people could have an attitude detrimental to the group. Especially when they argue with the clinicians who probably know better than we do.

Exams And Rectal Palpation

Seems an odd way to start a new year doesn't it? I was somewhat surprised myself!

After a couple of busy days things are starting to become more settled with a couple of hours of free time to relax. Tuesday was especially long seeing me leave the flat at 8am and not getting back until 11pm. I had the rectal palpation class in the morning and then an equine clinic in the afternoon!

Exam today was testing our communication skills with clients in a veterinary environment. We were briefed on the situation and told the get the client. I think it all went well, but found it really hard to concentrate without the focus of an animal in the room. Instead there was a stuffed toy cat in a box. When I've been in practice I've taken a history before, but always with an animal present so I can ask about the body systems as I examine Fluffy. No such luck this time.

Off climbing this evening to see if my foot holds up. If not I may have to visit a medic. Urgh.

Technique Book

There is a document online known as the technique book that we are meant to fill in each and every time we go on EMS. As the name suggests we tick off various procedures we accomplish during the time on placement. Some, such as IM or SC injection, get ticked off quite a bit whilst others, such as bitch spey, don't get ticked off much at all.

Over the holidays I accomplished much in the way of ticking bits off, but apart from various injections I don't feel comfortable doing on my own at all. Still feel I need adult supervision for loads of tasks and I guess I will for a while, probably until after graduation. The feeling of fear when I was stuck with my own unconscious patient and a scalpel will remain for a while, but so will the feeling of elation when the job was complete successfully.

Contact

For the past couple of days we have had hand-on practical with animals! It has been really nice to get down to what most of us hope to do in another few years and actually handle living creatures. This may seem a bit odd to some people, but as vet students we aren't really trusted with things that are actually alive until at least 4th year - we mainly see anatomy or pathology specimens. I for one was quite happy to sit in a 2 hour tutorial playing with a Labrador learning the ins and outs of a clinical examination and proper history taking.

More animals!

Practical Exams

First a little complaint - I have practical exams on Monday and Tuesday out at Easter Bush that only last 5-10 minutes each. Why can't we just have both of them on the same day? My round trip time to get there will be about 1 hour, and I could just as easily spend that revising at home.

I spent the past 2 hours doing suture practice. I think I got through everything. Hand ties, simple interrupted ties, simple continuous, surgeons knots, square knots to name but a few. Then I ran out of suture material, so I came home to do more work. Systems pathology or the physics behind ultrasound? It's a hard choice.

Masters

I've been debating doing a masters for a while now, and this week I attended a conference for vet students who were thinking about taking a year to do a BSc, MSc, or even a PhD. I've pretty much decided I would like to study some more, but there are so many different topics ranging all the way from animal behaviour to molecular immunology. I still have several problems though, the main one being my parents. The masters will probably be funded, but what if the vet tuition fees increase (again) during my year out? I will also miss my classmates. I suppose I could finish this course, graduate, and then study the masters, but the call of clinical work is really strong at the moment. Many options.

At the moment I have no time to think about this. My shifts at work aren't getting covered at the moment, so on top of lectures and practicals (which thankfully finished today) as well as revision I have to work until at least 2am today. And tomorrow. I can't mess these exams up.