Neurology/Neurosurgery Service Summer Clinic Experience

http://www.ecvn.org/

This summer, I participated in ONE summer clinic. I was very selective on which summer clinic I wanted to do mostly because I really wanted to focus on working at my job as a technician in the Equine ICU and also get in some R&R over my well needed summer break.

I selected the Neurology/Neurosurgery rotation for my summer clinic. My experience in this service went above and beyond my expectations before I started. I learned so much and got to work next to some really amazing residents, faculty, colleagues and technicians. 

Summer clinics are offered at UCD every summer to give veterinary students the opportunity to gain valuable experience in the teaching hospital.  It's really a glimpse into what you will experience during your entire fourth year of veterinary school.

This “summer clinic” experience really throws you into survival mode simulation of your fourth year of veterinary school. Students are given patient responsibilities such as nursing care, and maintaining medical records. There is never a time when students are unsupervised, as they are guided by knowledgeable residents, faculty, and extraordinary veterinarians. The goal of the clinic is to follow patients all the way through a diagnostic work-up and immerse yourself in helping that animal return home to be more comfortable and live a better quality of life. 

When you hear hoof beats....think horses...

http://www.rdsvs-horsesociety.co.uk/4.html

Tails from the Trenches

I love the VBMA (Veterinary Business Managment Association). They give veterinary students such wonderful experiences such as their panel discussion at Sudwerks "Tails from the Trenches." The panel consisted of five different successful veterinarians who were very open about their experiences. They answered questions regarding their experiences, career choices, personal achievements, as well as their adversities. I love going to discussions and lectures like this one because I learn so much about my profession and often discover something I had never thought about before. There are so many avenues that this profession has to offer and everyone in it is happy to share their pathway to their contribution to medicine.

The benefits and downsides of going into internships after graduation from veterinary school was debated. I feel it sometimes seems like internships are the thing to do after veterinary school, but according to the panel, in the past, internships were usually reserved for the really smart, high GPA graduating veterinarians and the others typically went right into general practice. Internships offered them a chance to get more advanced skills and training than the average veterinary graduate. Internships were highly competitive and some still are, but there are many mor to go around. 

Times have changed and people are demanding more advanced care for their animal companions. They often want someone who is experienced and will offer the best quality of medicine to their pet. I believe more veterinary students are leaning towards completing internships upon graduation because they feel like they are not confident in themselves as a starting veterinarian. I also think a lot of people take internships to gain valuable experience working at prestigious clinics with some of the most talented doctors. I think internships can go both ways, it depends on the internship and what the new graduate wants to get out of the experience. With more internships now available, I think that graduating veterinarians seeking internships need to be more careful about the internship they select. Not all internships provide an ideal learning environment for recent grads, many of them do not pay very much at all. I think it is really important to have at least done an externship at the practice you select for your internship because you want to make sure you get the experience you need out of it. 


One of the panelists from the VBMA talk was a graduate from 2009 and had completed an internship after graduation. We were very lucky to have such a recent grad willing to share personal experiences with us. When looking for jobs, many of the practices glazed over her experience at an internship, it did not seem that important to many of them. However the one that she ended up getting a job at did care about her internship. They were thrilled to have someone with that experience. 

 

Welcome to Spring Quarter

It's the beginning of Spring quarter! Days are longer, class hours slightly shorter, and best of all, we have several Fridays off! 
I've started my first week off in the wildlife/companion animal nursing rotation in the hospital (also known as CAPE). They basically see anything that is not a dog, cat, horse, llama, alpaca, or food animal. I got to give several injections SubQ to a hawk, which was really cool. He seemed to be doing well and will probably be released into the wild soon. I never thought I would do much with birds, but maybe someday I can help injured wildlife (only when I know how to properly restrain them) without injuring them...which is easy to do! Or injure myself for that matter...

Since I started training for my new job this week, I've been at work a lot outside of class. I'm here at 9am in the morning and I head home around midnight. Keep in mind that this is not going to be my regular schedule (I think I wouldn't be able to keep that up), but I will be working 25% of the time. I sleep about 7 hours then wake up and study/prepare for the day in the morning. So far the green tea has been working very well, but many say I will soon be addicted to coffee. :)
Here is what our schedule looks like this quarter:

 

My goals this quarter are to have fun, enjoy my courses, and get better grades. I have several obstacles in the way of these goals, however, I feel if I try hard I can overcome them. 

I've recently started training as an Equine Intensive Care Unit Technician. Soon I will be a Equine ICU technician in the hospital. I am very excited to start such a great job where I will get valuable experiences taking care of critical care patients. I feel as though giving up some of my spare time will be well worth getting hands on experience in the equine hospital. 

I just have to keep up on my grades and studying since they are vital to my education. I hope to find a happy medium between balancing school (usually from 9-5 each day), work a couple times a week, usually 6-8 hour shifts, and studying outside of class, and oh yeah...fitting in some time to spend with my family and boyfriend. *Sigh....you gotta love veterinary school combined with an over-achiever personality. I almost went one year without a paid job, however, I happened to find myself in one. I am very grateful for the opportunity and hope to gain valuable skills for my future career as a veterinarian. I think the best part will be not only helping the hospital's equine and camelid patients, but learning what a good technician can contribute to my career as a vet. Many vets are only as good as their technicians because they rely on them for their bread and butter...to draw blood, run blood work, execute a advised medical treatment plan and notify the veterinarian when it might need to be changed accordingly. A vet is lost without their technicians when case load becomes high, they need to be able to trust their techs to help them get through the tough times. 

I am very excited for some of my courses this quarter, especially parasitology and immunology. My immunology course is taught by my mentor, Dr. Laurel Gershwin, a very well know and respected immunologist and wonderful professor. 

I expect great things of myself this quarter and it is already flying by, less exams, less finals, but a whole lot of interesting material to cover! 

I shouldn't forget to mention another personal goal of mine is to become one of the head coordinators for the Mercer clinic when our class takes the reins this May. I really have some great ideas to make Mercer run smoother and provide high quality veterinary care to the pets belonging to the homeless. I also plan to continue volunteering at the occasional spay/neuter feral cat clinics, hopefully setting myself up to help to be a volunteer coordinator at the Sacramento clinic during my third year. 

Also, I learned that research shows that meditation provides you with many health and wellness benefits, so I hope to continue my meditation practices and improve my well-being.

   

Pre-Veterinary Advising: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

http://www.tcc.edu/welcome/collegeadmin/OIE/SACCR/Conference_Information/2009/2009_Conference_Info.htm

 Let's face it, if you are planning on pursing a career as a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, you need some sort of advising. You may think you can do it on your own, but I'm telling you from experience it is best to seek someone who is experienced with the admissions requirements and process. Most schools offer free advising services of various different types. There is academic advising, pre-graduate school advising, pre-professional (like pre-vet) school advising, peer advising, career advising, etc. At least at Davis there are so many different types of counselors to choose from. It can often be overwhelming for undergrads trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives. In my opinion, you should visit all the counselors available to you. The more information and knowledge you can get regarding your potential career choices the better. The more connections and job fairs you attend, the better chance you will succeed in your future. 

You can Google all you want, but that doesn't make up for being able to speak to a real person about the admissions process. Of course, using Google as a resource helps to get a head start, but you should really discuss your academic plans with an academic adviser. I have found some very resourceful information on most veterinary school websites. They are often really open to conversing with you and usually list if they have any specific prerequisite requirements. If you plan on pursuing any professional or graduate school, planning ahead is essential. You need to get the right experiences as an undergraduate AND keep your grades up. Most importantly, you need to make sure you are taking the right prerequisite courses. 

I also suggest if you are interested in VetMed, start your educational/advising plans early. Starting in middle school is not too early, starting after a second career is also not too late, but obviously you have to work harder to catch up.

Take what academic advisers say with a grain of salt. If your gut feeling is you don't believe something they tell you, please double check their statements or comments with someone else. In the past, I have been "advised" to take courses I do not need, I have been told to repeat courses I did not need to repeat. Counselors may know a lot about advising, but they do NOT know everything. They only meet you for a brief moment and are asked to give you advice that will greatly affect your future and educational experience. I was once told by an academic counselor that if I didn't apply to multiple veterinary schools then I obviously did not want to be a veterinarian that badly. I'm sure if you have ever read my blog that you know that this is NOT true, but that was what I was told when I applied to ONLY UC Davis for the second time. They were sure wrong weren't they? And looking back on it, I remember that counselor made me cry because I was so uncertain about my future and if I could really get into vet school or not (which is something I TRULY wanted). So please, take what they say with a grain of salt, use them as a valuable resource, but be sure to check your resources to make sure they are presenting accurate and up to date information.

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

Here is some really great advice on becoming a veterinarian from a well respected vet that has established his own blog: http://avetsguidetolife.blogspot.com/

 

What a Weekend!

My weekend has been full of realizations of what I want to do with my life. On Friday, I started the morning off riding Tina, a gorgeous Morgan mare that belongs to one of my professors. Although I had an exam that afternoon, I felt that getting out to the barn was equally important.

On Friday evening, after our GI Anatomy exam, we had a TG (tail gate) at vet school. We typically have them once or twice a month, but basically it's a chance to hang out with all the vet students and sometimes the faculty comes too. They buy a bunch of Costco Food, fire up the BBQ's and tap the kegs. It's great after a long hard week and the second years do a great job putting it on (next year it will be my class's turn to host the TG's). I sat and ate with my friends, petted dogs that were running around having a great time, and we tried not to talk about the test or vet school (which can be difficult with a group of vet students--> We are so absorbed in our education, which is a great thing, but sometimes you just want to forget about the exams, the random Latin words, the anatomy, the crazy diseases and cases we've seen). Needless to say, I had a great time, and around 6pm I headed off to my equine nursing shift. 

I went into the shift knowing I have a lot of horse experience already, but I kept an open mind that I might learn something new that night (well cause really you never stop learning). I first met up with a second year student who was tracking lab animal/exotics. I knew it would be a great shift, I really enjoy working with people who don't have a lot of horse experience. I feel like I'm sharing my passion with them and helping them have an amazing experience with horses. The technician that was teaching us was great and had a good sense of humor. She told us PE meant "penile exam" however I quickly realized the horse's chart said "F" on it for female. I had a great evening in B-barn learning from a very experienced technician that had worked at Davis as a technician for the past 26 years. I actually did learn a few pointers on how to more efficiently do a physical exam and I learned the word "eupnic" which means normal breathing (ya, who would think). I think the most I got out of the experience though was the reassurance that equine medicine is where my passion lies. Working with the horses in B-barn was a wonderful experience and a glimpse into what my fourth year might be like. 

On Saturday, I volunteered at the MERCER clinic (veterinary care for pets of the homeless) and it was super busy. We only had about seven veterinary student volunteers and like 21 vet aides, so we had three vet aids per vet student. MERCER is a great opportunity for vet aides to get hands on experience restraining animals, drawing up vaccines, and learned how to apply flea medication. Although it is much different from your typical veterinary clinic it is a great opportunity to find out if veterinary medicine is for you. Although I was only on for the morning shift, I stayed until 2 in the afternoon because there was such a shortage of volunteers. I realized that there was a lot that could be done to improve the clinic and that I wanted to get more involved. MERCER is such a wonderful opportunity that benefits vet students, homeless people, and their pets.

This Sunday I'm taking a little easy as I haven't taken much time to relax lately. I have to study for our Animal Nutrition exam next week. I'm going to try to ride Hobby (the Quarter Horse) and spend some time with my wonderful boyfriend! 

 Me and Tina

What is Vet School Like? Part 1

I recently received a question from a pre-vet student asking, "What is Veterinary school really like? I have heard it is really hard, but I'm wondering if it is really that much different from undergraduate courses."

To answer your question, it is a lot different than my undergraduate courses.

Below, I have taken a screen shot of my ical for next week. These week is a typical week in vet school, although some weeks we have less classes or labs, but typically this is what our schedule is like. Although school is primarily what consumes my life, I also take advantage of extra curriculars like Colic Team, Veterinary Business Managment Assoc. (VBMA) meetings, and several lunch talks that are offered throughout the quarter. Some weeks there are less extra things to do, but typically I try to participate in club activities as well as spay/neuter clinics on the weekends. You may wonder, why not just focus on school and studying for my classes? Well a lot of my classmates choose to just study and not attend or participate in many extra curriculars, but I believe that doing these types of activities in addition to school is essential for my future as a member of the Veterinary profession. No one is going to care if I got an A or a B, I mean when I graduate from UC Davis SVM, I will be a veterinarian. Of course I want good grades and I do study several hours a day, even on weekends. I just feel that getting actual hands on experience in the field is a good supplement to the veterinary curriculum. 

KEY:
VMD 421: Neurology
VMD 402B: Cardio Physiology
VMD 432: GI Anatomy
VMD 408: Animal Nutrition
VMD 430: Radiology
VMD 481: Case Discussions
VMD 401B: Anatomy of the head

We have additional classes throughout the quarter, such as Respiratory Physiology, some classes don't last all quarter. See below for this quarter's schedule.

I will be following this post with more about what vet school is like when I have more time, I'm off to study for Monday's Neurology exam!