Just another midterm monday...

Yes. Yes. Monday midterms = The WORST. It totally kills the buzz for the weekend... Alas, 6 down and 5 more to go. Today was Health Management which I was very excited for. Here I was thinking, "Finally! A subject I am good at!" For heaven's sake, I have already taken HM in undergrad, read all the notes, practiced with the old midterms... it should have been a breeze. But what I wrote today was NOTHING even close to that. I am hoping that I used my most educated logic and guessing skills and will make it out okay. I am really not quite sure what made the test so hard. There was a LOT of vague behaviour and general HM stuff; no real focus of the species specific industries (which we spent 20 of the 30 lectures on!!). Either way, I was not the most upset; there were some girls who came out in angry tears because they felt so unfairly tested and went STRAIGHT to the program co-ordinator. :S Bell curve?!?

Challenge Cup (an OVC only Hockey tournament with Prof teams) is under way. As for the Stags, we are not doing so well thus far. Coed team lost 6-0 (to the Scalpelbladers!) and the Women lost 3-0. We did however get our jerseys... Makes us look super spiffy! And like an actual team.

One of our upcoming midterms is my Clin Med Small Animal Exam. This is a practical exam with just the student, the examiner, and a hound dog. We have to talk through and perform a general physical exam; head to tail. This shouldn't be too hard. I plan on just talking about what I should see, what I am looking for, and what I actually see (slash feel!). Will be tough without my thermometer since it broke in Oct, but I'll find someone's to borrow.

Christmas party at the Frat this weekend. First year girls are traditionally the decorators, but since there is a shortage of second year girls, I will be helping them cook. the first year boys "liberate" a christmas tree and the second year boys clean up. And we all drink. Haha! Speaking of parties, our Stag Bar Night was a great success. We had 163 people attend and made almost $600; half for our class, half for a children's charity. We also have Pet Pictures with Santa this weekend too! Can't wait to see all the pets come out and get all snuggley with Santa! Should be adorable! I plan on taking Soc in so we have a good holiday picture together! he will hate every minute of it, but I don't really care! Haha! He'll be safe, no worries!

If I have time this week I'll give you a synopsis of the CCM which we are learning in AVM. It is kind of straight forward but definitely takes some practice to perfect. I have to practice this break because we jump into our client simulated interviews in Jan. :)

More fun words.

Prehension = To bring food to the mouth (we use our hands and forks, cows use their lips and tongues!)
Mastication = Chewing food
Deglutition = Swallowing a bolus of food
Zygapophyses = Articulation between cervical vertebrae
Tachycardia = Fast heart rate
Brachycardia = Slow heart rate
Halitosis = Bad breath
Blepharospasm = Squinting (eyes)
Eructation = Burping
Cirrhosis = Chronic Liver Disease
Atelectasis = Collapsed Lung

Rumen with a View!

So today we had our digestive physiology lab where we got to explore the rumen of a live cow. There is a small herd of ~15 cows on the UofG campus that are fistulated (have rubber windows in their sides). these are surgically implanted and seriously do not effect the cow in any major way. They are teaching animals that allow students to get a better understanding of the muscular and digestive capabilities of a rumen. The rumen is so big and strong that they don't feel anything really, we do be more sensitive around the esophageal opening because boluses are continually coming in and we don't want to create back flow. One of our guys has such long arms that he was able to reach into the reticulum and retrieve the hardware magnet so the prof could clean it off for her!!! (Magnets are fed to the cows to prevent Hardware disease. They catch stray metal that may have been ingested and prevents it from puncturing the wall of the reticulum and puncturing the heart!) A very cool opportunity for us!

Rectal palpation glove on and to the shoulder!! I am short so I had to get on my tippy-toes!

This is not manure.... yet! This was the digesta we had to clear from her stomach so we could feel something! this was about half of the fill, and of course we put it back!!!

Movember

Wow. So busy!
Grand Council:
A hot hot mess. SO MUCH FUN!! However, just a mess of alcohol and destruction! The Betas did a fantastic job of hosting. What a beautiful city and campus.... and frat house! Until the Deltas showed up. We have a reputation that did not tarnish this year of causing as much trouble as possible... so we did that. hhaha. We had a "Toga" party n which we dressed in Gonzo gear, Gonzo Olympics (which was held in a field with a keg of beer in it!!!), Fancy dinner and guest speakers, a hilighter rave (so we went in all black), and then toured campus and the local waterfalls!! Unfortunately, Cornell would not allow me to take pictures in the building... but I have some of the campus!

Halloween:
We had the OTS Haunted House, the Frat Halloween party, and Trick-or-Eat.
Haunted house was fun, not as many people as I thought there'd be, but we really pulled out all the stops!!! My team were an autopsy room, dissecting "cadavers" which jumped to life.

Frat party got wild quick... ended up getting spilt up by the police... :( but a great time anyway!! Plus we just moved to a different house to continue the party anyway! hahaha

And if you are unfamiliar with TrickorEat go to http://www.trickoreat.ca/. Our OVC team had 26 members!! We ended up completing 5 routes!!! So proud of my classmates!!!

Look at all the donated food!!!

Midterm Update:
Well I got a great mark on my clin med midterm. That made me feel good! Then I got my histo mark... 58%. WHICH IS A PASS!!!! :D I know this is a poor mark, but 1/3 the class failed AND all the upper years said it is more common than not to fail this first histo test. My goal was to pass and I did!! :) I wrote Neurophysiology on Monday so no mark yet. I feel that because I spent the weekend doing Halloween stuff, I really did not study as hard as I know I should have... so bad K, but what can you do... work harderfor the next one!!! Anatomy Viva Voce Friday! Need to study lots more!!

Movember:
Officially started!!!! I have a Movember page so please support me in my goal to raise money to fight against Prostate cancer!!! http://mosista.co/kmarinac

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...