Catching you up

A little over two and a half months ago, I stepped out of the classroom for what I hoped to be the last time ever. December 12, 2014 marked the last day that I would ever have to take an exam until my NAVLE (the veterinary license exam).

Four years of undergrad and five semesters of veterinary school later, I am finally at the clinical phase of my education. For the next year and a half, I will be spending three week rotations in different aspects of veterinary medicine. 

The pursuit of my dream to be a veterinarian has been an exciting one, but also a very overwhelming and time consuming one. Unfortunately, because of this, I have neglected my relationship with friends and family. I hope that by writing in this online journal, I will be able to share with you, in part, what has been keeping the phone lines quiet and the email inboxes empty.

I started my very first rotation on Monday, January 5th, 2015. Rotation 1 was in pathology and it was divided into two parts, clinical pathology and anatomical pathology. Clinical pathology was all about interpretation of clinical tests such as blood work, urinalysis, blood smears, and cytology. The exciting portion of the rotation, at least to me, was the anatomical pathology part. In essence, it involved doing necropsies (that's an autopsy on an animal). Maybe it's because I'm a bit morbid, or maybe it's because I've always loved puzzles, but opening up an animal to discover why it died was fascinating. The variety of animals we saw was enormous. The first day of my rotation, I did a necropsy on a goat! I had the opportunity to work on dogs, cats, mice, pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, and I even did a deer and a buffalo. I can now say that I'm an expert at taking out the pluck in record time. For those faint of heart, don't look up what the pluck is. We look at every single organ in the body and take samples from different organs to examine closer under the microscope. Finding the cause of death, as sad as it is, is very rewarding.

My second rotation was anesthesia. This is said to be one of the hardest and most stressful rotations we have to do. I can't compare to too many other experiences, but it was definitely stressful. We are responsible for selecting the anesthetic drug combinations we want to use in our patients (many of which are not in good health). Anesthesia is divided up into different parts. To start we need to pre-medicate the patient, which sedates them to the point where we can put in an IV catheter without much struggle. Then we induce the patient with a drug or combination of drugs. After the patient is unconscious, we will intubate them (put a tube down the trachea) and maintain them during anesthesia on a gas anesthetic. We also have to take into consideration pain control during and post-op. The combinations you can use are more than I can count. Learning the different drugs was a whirlwind, but realizing that I now know exactly why I am picking the drug I am is an amazing feeling.

I am now currently in Coopersville, MI doing my third rotation, Practice Based Ambulatory Program (PBAP). This rotation focuses on large animal general practice. On my first day of the rotation, I got to help deliver a calf! The rotation itself has been very interesting, but the weather has not been cooperating. -15°F (yes, 15 degrees UNDER 0) is bad enough indoors, but when you're standing outside looking at cows, it can get downright miserable. On the other hand, I have been doing so many things that I have never done before. I am learning about how to drive cattle through chutes, I got to dehorn calves, I got to place IV catheters in jugular veins, I even got to attempt to suture up an incision site. I closed up the muscle layer just fine, but failed miserably in trying to close the skin layer. Who knew cow hide was so tough?? In my defense, the needle I was using was a dull needle. However, I did end up learning a better suturing technique. Who knows what tomorrow is going to bring?