October Showers

Rain, rain, go away! Seriously! Gloomy days are just very difficult to cope with...

So I found another SWEET blog The Weird Veterinary World (http://www.drdolen.com/). Dr Dolen has some amazing cases posted in there as well as very cool pictures!

Also, I had my first midterm on Monday in Clin Med I. It went very well, lots of basic husbandry questions as well as terms and definitions. Stuf like:
"What is a female cattle called that has not yet had a calf?"
Answer: Heifer

"What is the near-side of the horse?"
Answer: Left side

"What lympnh node can be palpated on HEALTHY animals?"
Answer: Submandibular

"What knot do you use when you need to lengthen a lead?"
Answer: Reef knot

"What part of the 'hay' contains the most fibre?"
Answer: Stem

Blah, blah, blah... Everyone feels like they over studied. Hopefully marks come up soon.

Histology quiz (worth 10%) is coming up soon... next Monday in fact. And just my luck, this weekend is my trip to Cornell University in Ithica, New York for the Veterinary Fraternity Grand Council 2011. :( Which means I have until Friday to study because I intend on being very drunk this weekend! Especially because I am legal to drink in the States! And also free keg beer!!

So what is histo.... well, the study of cells and tissues basically. It is cell bio on drugs... lots of purple, pink, blue, and black stained slides of every cell type from every organ... and the differences between species! Fun times. This test will be stains, epithelium, glands, muscles, nerves, and connective tissue.

Portion of the small intestine's villi. Note the simple columnar epithelial cells. The blue (basophilic) ovals are the parallel and polar nuclei of each columnar cells. The bright pink (eosinophilic) outline is called the brush/striated border and consists of microvilli. The small clear spots are mucous producing goblet cells.

This is a picture of a simple coiled tubular gland. It's actually an apocrine sweat gland of a dog. Simple cuboidal epithelial cells surround the gland's lumen.

Striated muscle cells. You can see the dark lines and light lines interchange. Between the dark or Z lines is a sarcomere. A sarcomere is the contractile unit in the muscle. It contracts because of a Calcium dependant reaction between actin and myosin filaments.

End histology lesson.

There we are. Hopefully I will have pictures of the Cornell Veterinary School's campus to post for you later. If I don't lose too many neurons this weekend!!!

And the fun continues....

Here we are the short week after Thanksgiving... and it feels like the longest week yet. Maybe the mash potatoe hangover but these days have been dragging on... and not in a fun way. Lectures 8:30 - 5:30 everyday.... 6 hours of neuro lecture in 48 hours... let's just say there has not been a sufficient amount of studying occuring.

Ok, so my tiredness may also be due to me shadowing this week. Every first year has to do a week of shadowing a fourth year student during their clinical rotation for both small animal and large animal in order to pass clinical medicine. Ok maybe not pass, but failure to complete these weeks equals failure of the class. So I am on large animal medicine... only one case in but still have to show up at 7 am and 7 pm to do treatments and physicals. Our horse is just allergies causing swollen conjunctivitis, but still gotta be there until it goes home. It is fun, don't get me wrong. I like the opportunity to be in the clinic, watching and practicing, but I wish there was more to do then just rectal temperatures and applying eye meds on one horse... Then it would feel like less of bother... also I hate 7am.

I have a couple fun words that I have learned that make me smile. It justifies why I love medicine so much!

BORBORGYMI - gurgling gastrointestinal sounds
PETECHIA - small blood spots on mucous membranes (pet-tiki-ah)
IDIOSYNCRATIC - sorry ma'am, after $2,000 of diagnostics, I have no effing idea wghat is wrong with your cat!
ILIOCOLIOCECAL JUNCTION - where the ilium, colon, and cecum join

More will come to me... I am tired.

My forst midterm is on Monday at 8:30 am in Clin Med. Wish me luck!

Viva Voce

Hello from life on the inside. Here we are 5 1/2 weeks into vet school. I have exciting news; I passed my first viva voce in Anatomy!!! Yay! I also survived my first online quiz about Swine Production, but that is less of a feat. A viva voce is a live, group oral exam with your dissection and the prof. At first this sonds awesome, "What?! Group?! That means someone else will be able to get all the answers!! w00t!! No studying!!" False. Black Bear. (Shout out to my fellow D. K. Shrute fans!) This is a terrifying test in which you all must study very hard for and still may not figure out the answers. Sorry, but that is what you have to look forward to... It is a very cool dynamic though; your group gets to discuss things and have a chance to change your answers. Also it is Pass, Fail, or Outstanding (1/3, 2/3, or 3/3, you get 0 for not showing up), So we passed. We stumbled on the alternative name for the Prescapular Lymph node (Superficial cervical lymph node) and some of the cervical muscles (How could I forget the Scalaneus!). We did however, rock the shit out of the heart. Papillary muscles, chordae tendinae, mitral valve, paraconal interventricular groove, etc. Also the branching of the left subclavian artery (Canada, Denmark, Venezuala, Spain International Airlines in ruminants and Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatchewan Intranational Airline for the small animals).

My notes from Anatomy for the branching of the Left Subclavian Artery.



More notes for the anatomy of the heart.

 In other news, the Social Committee has a lot of fun stuff in the works. We want to run a Dog Wash, Pet Pictures with Santa, and a Bachelor Auction to raise money for our classes graduation and fourth year play. Then we are organizing an OVC Trick or Eat team for charity. Finally or just social events will be a ski/snowboard trip to either Mount Tremblant or Blue Mountain, Stags take over the Palace (a night club in Guelph) with the mechanical banana, Friends and Family day at the OVC, and a Spring Fling. SO MUCH ORGANIZING!! I love it. I am the poster girl, so I get to design all of our posters. Let me show you some examples:

And on that I will have to leave you. It is late and I have my Live Animal Landmarks lab tomorrow at 8:30 am... I have been finding these early mornings tough so I should try to get some sleep... I wish I could have a caffeine IV drip.... that would be nice...