Six more days of classes, 1 more clinical pathology quiz
and 9 finals. We had our first final exam on Monday - surgical lab
final. Ten minutes, five stations, two minutes at each and no going
back. I did pretty well, I think. My thumb got stuck as I was trying to
glove and I fiddled with it for what felt like forever, but still came
in before the buzzer. I nearly shit myself (metaphorically) when my
examiner's phone rang midway through doing a transfixating ligature - I
thought it was the timer at first! All in all, it could have been much
worse. I didn't stab myself. Or anyone else.
Next is anesthesia lab exam on Monday. That'll be sixteen
stations, two minutes per station, and of course, no going back.
Combination of demonstrate/explain and written work. I'm good with the
fluid rate and drug calculations, and I'll be okay with IV catheters and
ET intubation and the machine once I review it a bit more, but lord
help me, the nerve blocks will be the death of me. And they've listed a
bunch that no one ever practically uses! Dental blocks in dogs and cats,
and paw blocks in cats, and epidurals in cattle are all well and good,
but there's very rarely a need to do a nerve block on a cow's lower jaw,
damnit!
This time of year is always weird. You're so close to the end - 21 days! But there's just so much shit to do that you might as well be buckling down for an 18 month transatlantic sea voyage. I just don't know where to start. That's not to say I haven't started reviewing at all, cause I have. Mostly I've been working on Mt Clinical Pathology. I made base camp at cytology. It's frustrating, because I really like clinical pathology. But there's just SO MUCH INFORMATION. "Overwhelming" doesn't seem to begin to describe it. "Uberwhelming" maybe. Yeah, I like that. "Uberwhelming".
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Unusual teaching methods
I previously blogged about unusual study methods. Well, sometimes there's some unusual teaching methods too. Generally, these are the best. These are the methods that really jam it in a student's brain. Now, not all professors can pull these off and not all subjects lend themselves to bizarre demonstrations. But when they do, it stays with you.
Two brief examples:
A month or so ago, we were learning the life cycle of ick - it's got another name but I can't spell it. It's a fish parasite, common in fish tanks. (Yes, at AVC, we have mandatory classes on fish health. I think we may be the only school to require this, though I'm happy to be corrected). At the beginning of the following lecture, Dr S asked us to take out a piece of scrap paper and draw the life cycle of ick - after reassuring our neurotic vet student minds that we wouldn't be graded on this. There was a good reason why we wouldn't be graded on it, because after briefly reviewing the life cycle, he had us all ball up the papers and biff them at each other. "Now, chances are some of you got hit, and some of you didn't. That's how ick spreads." Suffice to say, we all remember ick. This same professor has had all sixty of us crowd into various sized hypothetical boxes to demonstrate stocking density in aquaculture.
The second example was actually from a complete different professor. Our therio professor is known for his animated teaching style - no one misses that lecture if they can help it. But he outdid himself this week. He rewrote the song Summertime to be about horse breeding, and then sang it live in front of the class (he's a surprisingly good singer). If only I'd thought copy down the lyrics!
So if you ever find yourself as a professor in the future, don't be afraid to be weird. Weird is memorable.
Two brief examples:
A month or so ago, we were learning the life cycle of ick - it's got another name but I can't spell it. It's a fish parasite, common in fish tanks. (Yes, at AVC, we have mandatory classes on fish health. I think we may be the only school to require this, though I'm happy to be corrected). At the beginning of the following lecture, Dr S asked us to take out a piece of scrap paper and draw the life cycle of ick - after reassuring our neurotic vet student minds that we wouldn't be graded on this. There was a good reason why we wouldn't be graded on it, because after briefly reviewing the life cycle, he had us all ball up the papers and biff them at each other. "Now, chances are some of you got hit, and some of you didn't. That's how ick spreads." Suffice to say, we all remember ick. This same professor has had all sixty of us crowd into various sized hypothetical boxes to demonstrate stocking density in aquaculture.
The second example was actually from a complete different professor. Our therio professor is known for his animated teaching style - no one misses that lecture if they can help it. But he outdid himself this week. He rewrote the song Summertime to be about horse breeding, and then sang it live in front of the class (he's a surprisingly good singer). If only I'd thought copy down the lyrics!
So if you ever find yourself as a professor in the future, don't be afraid to be weird. Weird is memorable.
Friday, March 1, 2013
Hell week
So, we wrote 4 midterms in a week this week. Anesthesia, Medicine, Clinical Pathology and Surgery. We're all pretty haggard, and exhausted. We're still technically in the Midterm Madness - one next week, one the week after and one the week after that. But one per week is practically a vacation after running the gauntlet like we did this week.
I'll flatly admit it - I don't like surgery. I don't really have any interest it, and it barely registers a blip on my radar. When it does register, my brain tends to go into a meltdown something to the effect of: HOLY SHIT! I AM GOING TO HAVE TO DO SURGERY IN SEPTEMBER! I AM GOING TO CUT OPEN A LIVING CREATURE, TAKE STUFF OUT AND CLOSE IT UP AND THE ANIMAL IS GOING TO LIVE!!! And then my conscious brain runs away screaming leaving my subconscious brain to watch Doctor Who clips on YouTube. It's a self-protective mechanism. Like a fugue state, but with more timey-wimey.
In fact, I'm something of an anomaly in that I felt way more confident going into the Clinical Pathology midterm than the Surgery midterm. Clinical Pathology is all about reading bloodwork. There's rules, and if you apply the rules and do a bit of problem solving, you get something approaching a diagnosis. I love this shit. I loved going over CBCs* and serum biochemistry reports when I worked in a clinic. The vets would look at a sheet of numbers and declare a diagnosis and I'd be jumping up and down like a Chihuahua on coffee trying to get them to explain it to me.
But surgery... Well at this point, we're just learning lists of stuff. Types of suture material. Suture patterns. Rules of asepsis. Methods of sterilization for equipment. Don't get me wrong, it's important stuff. It just doesn't interest me all that much. So needless to say, studying for it was a bit painful. Luckily, it's over, and it's not a cumulative final. It actually wasn't bad.
Anesthesia killed me last week. Everything I thought I knew about induction drugs? Yeah, she asked everything else. I'm hoping I redeemed myself on the "diagram and explain" type questions about breathing circuits and equipment. My vaporizer diagram was like the work of an artist. Assuming that artist was Picasso in his later stages, so that it kind of looked like a vaporizer if you tilted your head and squinted. But I labelled everything right and explained how it worked, and that's the important bit right? I'm in vet school, not art school!
*That's complete blood count, not Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; though I do love Hockey Night In Canada.
I'll flatly admit it - I don't like surgery. I don't really have any interest it, and it barely registers a blip on my radar. When it does register, my brain tends to go into a meltdown something to the effect of: HOLY SHIT! I AM GOING TO HAVE TO DO SURGERY IN SEPTEMBER! I AM GOING TO CUT OPEN A LIVING CREATURE, TAKE STUFF OUT AND CLOSE IT UP AND THE ANIMAL IS GOING TO LIVE!!! And then my conscious brain runs away screaming leaving my subconscious brain to watch Doctor Who clips on YouTube. It's a self-protective mechanism. Like a fugue state, but with more timey-wimey.
In fact, I'm something of an anomaly in that I felt way more confident going into the Clinical Pathology midterm than the Surgery midterm. Clinical Pathology is all about reading bloodwork. There's rules, and if you apply the rules and do a bit of problem solving, you get something approaching a diagnosis. I love this shit. I loved going over CBCs* and serum biochemistry reports when I worked in a clinic. The vets would look at a sheet of numbers and declare a diagnosis and I'd be jumping up and down like a Chihuahua on coffee trying to get them to explain it to me.
But surgery... Well at this point, we're just learning lists of stuff. Types of suture material. Suture patterns. Rules of asepsis. Methods of sterilization for equipment. Don't get me wrong, it's important stuff. It just doesn't interest me all that much. So needless to say, studying for it was a bit painful. Luckily, it's over, and it's not a cumulative final. It actually wasn't bad.
Anesthesia killed me last week. Everything I thought I knew about induction drugs? Yeah, she asked everything else. I'm hoping I redeemed myself on the "diagram and explain" type questions about breathing circuits and equipment. My vaporizer diagram was like the work of an artist. Assuming that artist was Picasso in his later stages, so that it kind of looked like a vaporizer if you tilted your head and squinted. But I labelled everything right and explained how it worked, and that's the important bit right? I'm in vet school, not art school!
*That's complete blood count, not Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; though I do love Hockey Night In Canada.
Friday, February 15, 2013
The Walking Dead
No, I don't mean my classmates - though ask me again at the end in a few weeks as we finish up yet another round of midterms.
To a certain extent, I mean me. I do apologize for my absence, dear readers. For awhile, I didn't have much interesting to talk about, and then I felt bad about updating after so long away (like that awkward moment when you have to finally reply to an email weeks and weeks after you got it...)... But, figured I'd put on the big girl panties and return from the dead.
So, we're starting to learn the ins and outs of surgery. Personally, I am scared shitless about surgery. It seems once per lecture (at least), we're reminded of some new way we can possibly kill our patients. Not to mention that all surgical instruments look like torture instruments. (Or home improvement implements...)
Exhibit A: Finochietto rib retractor
As a bonus, it even squeaked in a wonderfully macabre way. As we're staring at a positively terrifying array of surgical instruments, a friend happily points to the rib retractor and proclaims, "Finochietto. And I only know that because it was in a game I played."
Being a video game geek myself, I stared blankly at him for a minute before saying, "Okay, you can't say that and then NOT say what game it was."
"The Walking Dead." And then, before my imagination could really run away from me (I don't like zombies...), he added "You use it to open a door."
So there you have it. It's the Swiss Army knife of surgical tools. Holds open ribs, terrifies small children (and according to another classmate, anyone who saw the movie "Hostel") and in a pin, can wedge open a stubborn stuck door.
To a certain extent, I mean me. I do apologize for my absence, dear readers. For awhile, I didn't have much interesting to talk about, and then I felt bad about updating after so long away (like that awkward moment when you have to finally reply to an email weeks and weeks after you got it...)... But, figured I'd put on the big girl panties and return from the dead.
So, we're starting to learn the ins and outs of surgery. Personally, I am scared shitless about surgery. It seems once per lecture (at least), we're reminded of some new way we can possibly kill our patients. Not to mention that all surgical instruments look like torture instruments. (Or home improvement implements...)
Exhibit A: Finochietto rib retractor
As a bonus, it even squeaked in a wonderfully macabre way. As we're staring at a positively terrifying array of surgical instruments, a friend happily points to the rib retractor and proclaims, "Finochietto. And I only know that because it was in a game I played."
Being a video game geek myself, I stared blankly at him for a minute before saying, "Okay, you can't say that and then NOT say what game it was."
"The Walking Dead." And then, before my imagination could really run away from me (I don't like zombies...), he added "You use it to open a door."
So there you have it. It's the Swiss Army knife of surgical tools. Holds open ribs, terrifies small children (and according to another classmate, anyone who saw the movie "Hostel") and in a pin, can wedge open a stubborn stuck door.
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