Diary of a Vet Student

Hello

I have finnished and it's absolutely fantasamic. The pharmacology paper on wednesday was a real @***@@. Everyone had worked really hard for it. It's mad when you get in there and you know that you were revising NSAIDs that morning and then you get in the exam and they say "Compare and contrast the pharmacology of NSAIDs and glucocorticoids" and you haven't a scooby-doo, not even a foggy magnologgy, what an NSAID does. It's just typical physiology there's just so much stuff to get into your head that a lot falls out. Ah well. Hopefully I did enought to pass.

As usual everyone went out of the exam and walked instinctively to the beer bar. Cider and black - Thankyou so much! Then we all went ice skating and my flat mate got a bit too enthusiastic and quite literally mowed down a small child. We left pretty sharpish and proceeded to boogy the night away to the wee small hours. Alas it was short lived for we all had our pathology essays and work book to do the next morning. Eek. You try describing the pathology of the red blood cell with the feeling that a rhinocerous is having a the time of its life in your head. Anyway managed to hand everything in on Friday morning.

This term was pretty intense and not really helped by the fact that the content can be pretty dry at times. I've still enjoyed it, but I'm knackered now. Oh I can't wait. I'm so excited for Xmas. Have a great time me luvly readers and I'll start writing again next term.

Just had parasitology practical exam, which was sticky to say the very least. Just (again) so many names to remember and then there are all the life cycles and then you have to identify them and you have to know their pathogenesis and clinical signs. Basically for every question I just wrote all the worms I knew of that could possibly infect that animal and look sort of like the specimen and then I selected one (sometimes at random) from the list to use as my answer. Well ok it wasn't quite that bad. I think I'll hopefully pass. It's multi choice this afternoon.

Have to go because I am trying to sort out references for my intercalated degree and I've got to walk to uni for the exam and have lunch. Ah. I'm sooooo busy and important.

Hello lovely diary readers

Xmas is so close now isn't it? That's what I keep telling myelf as I try to keep up with the mad cramming scramble that comes at the end of term . We had a bacteria exam last Wednesday. Absolutely insane. Just so many names. I sometimes find myself waking up in the morning muttering, "staphylococcus aureas, lactose fermenting, streptococcus equi, beta haemolytic catalase negative". Everyone should be warned about 3rd year: it's very dry. Not to say that's it's not interesting too, but when your revising the words "endless" and "sole-destroying" and "trudge"seem highly relevant.

The practical exam consisted of 4 demonstrations of bacteria growth and information about where the bacteria came from, the symptoms of the animal. Each demo also had a microscope with a gram stain or the bacteria (or yeast) so that you could identify it is gram positive or negative and cocci or bacilli. Then you used the growth characteristics on defferent media to identify it. At the end you write a report on the relevance of the findings, the antibiotic resistance and any further suggested tests. The report is only about 2 lines.

The written paper was 2 essays. I did one on yeasts and that asked me to write brief notes on 4 different species. So that was Ok (I think). Then there was a multichoice and true/false.

Tomo I've got practical and written parasitology - no essays just multichoice- but sometimes I think I'd prefer an essay, because you just spew up what you know and don't have to do any lateral thinking.

Then on Wednesday it's pharmacology followed by a magnificent Xmas piss-up. wahey

I still have a life and I went to RDA on Saturday where we had a Xmas party!

Had a guest lecturer this morning. he was talking about how he has dedicated the past 30 years of his life to discovering the intravenous anaesthetic propofol, which is pretty amazing. he took us through the whole proecess of discovering the drug and then putting it through all the trials it needed to get it licensed.

Have been doing serious study of course, but am going to have a lovely jubbly weekend helping at RDA and living cleanly. Going to try to resist the temptation of eating some of the builders who are working on the train line outside our flat at times such as 3am or 4am in the morning. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

First exam is on Wednesday and it's microbiology.

Have nice weekend.

Well dear diary I sunk into a pit of gloom last night and went to the shop to buy a mars delight some fairy lights and a massive bag of fish and chips. Such was my sadness of being faced with yet another hard core night of revision. This was indeed a good plan because it allowed me to avoid the said revision by tangling myself up in the lights and laying on my bed with a monster stomach ache brought about by the eating of copious amounts of grease.

It's the truth we've all got to face here at glasgow vet school. At least for 1st to 3rd year at the end of every term you have to do class exams. That means a lot of heartache and cramming and late night study sessions. So I'm right in the midst of it all again with only the thought of Xmas and the joy shining from my twinkling fairy lights to keep me going.

It's not so bad really and I mostly enjoy it. It just happened that last night I had planned to go out on the raz, but the plan caved in so I was consoling myself.

Studying is going Ok. It's pretty slow and just so many names, but not too bad and lectures are slowing up.

I'm in this morning for a talk about our library project. This is something we have to do next year by using scientific papers and journals from our library. It's going to be a group project about 2500 words each, which is nothing really. It is easy marks (3.5% of the 3rd year mark) and a really nice way to learn how to use the library journals and read about something your interested in and won't get examined on. So it's a good thing. No I really believe that. I do.

We were doing haematology (which sadly I still can not spell) in pathology last week. Lots of blood cells on a blood smear and you can use these to suggest what is wrong with the animal. Problems such as splenomegally (big spleen), leukaemia and different types of aneamia can all be indicated by blood smears. It's definitely going to take time to develop our skills at identifying normal and abnormal cells though!

We had a microbiology revision practical yesterday. Basically we went around 10 different stations examining and smelling (makes you hungry- the smell of nappies) colonies growing on blood agar and other growth media. Then we looked at gram stains and from there tried to identify the organism using the clinical history and answered more questions. It can be quite fun, but of course it depends what you are comparing it to! It's less fun that snow boarding, but more fun than making a cup of tea.

Ok better go