Diary of a Vet Student

Oh ello. It's such a grudgey old morning. It's Thursday and I've had 2 hours of pharmacology: antiepileptics and endocrine pharmacology and then 1 more this morning GI tract pharmacology. I don't mind pharmacology. It's interesting enough, but it's just I want to go to sleep. Moan moan. Grouch grouch. I've got pathology leture this afternoon and then cytology. Then thinking of going to clinical club afterwards. Each week they have a guest speaker and give away free beer and pizza (a major incentive).

Never mind. 90% of the year are off to Pfizer offices and factory in London tomorrow. Pfizer (the drug company) are flying them all down to give them a tour of the company and lunch. It's all good for them as well as us, because they get to promote their products to future vets. Sadly about 10 of us can't fit on the plane and by random selection that means me. Ahhhh. never mind. I have big plans. It's so exciting I'm going to finish my pharmacology research project - about 1500 words. I don't mind doing that actually (although I suppose it wouldn't be my first choice of activity) because it's a really interesting subject: behaviour and I love that.

Had the football girls night out on Tuesday. Total carnage on a kareokee machine. Brilliant.

The weekend should be grand cos I'm doing riding for the disabled and going to see "Vagina Monologues" on Saturday. Also going to Anne Summers party on Sunday night - a few of the girls in our year are getting together. Bit of a theme going there then?! Hmmm

Hello. Had a lovely soba weekend. In fact the first weekend that I've really had totally off the booze all term. Must be geting serious now- we're getting near to exams and the vet ball is over so it's heads down. I just went to Riding for the Disabled on Saturday and attempted to catch up on all my studying the rest of the time. I was quite productive actually and managed to get caught up on pathology and pharmacology. We were studying antibiotics in pharmacology, which is hard going because there are so many different classes and you get muddled up with how they work and what they work on.

Just been doing more parasitology lectures this week. The principles of flea control and lice and mites were the subjects of yesterday's rivetting lectures. Joyfully today's lecture and practical were the last this year - wahey! the rest will just be revision. Oh the relief.

Got a pathology lecture this afternoon folllowed by a histopathology practical, which is just when you study pathology using slides of the lesions and a microscope. It's pretty tough because you often haven't a clue what you're looking at.It just looks like a load of dots and swirls, but luckily our nice-man takes us through it.

Went to girls football last night, except we play with the lads now too. They're nice, they say things like "well played" and "well in" everytime I stop the ball from going off the pitch when it comes to you. Sometimes they give out sympathetc smiles too, but it's a bit disheartening if you get one of those, because it probably means that they don't think you're capable of stopping the ball from going of the pitch when it comes at you. I re-started playing football this term, once I realised that the girls were organising a night with plenty of eating, drinking and the magical ingredient kareokee. The night in question is tonight and so I've been saving my voice all day....

Last time I wrote to you I was moaning about the amount of parasitology we were doing. Well anyway that day (valentines day) I went home and spent the night sorting through all my cards and thanking everyone (ah hem) then I came back to vetschool on Tuesday. Lo and behold I spent the whole morning studying flies and and drawing 30 different fly and maggot specimens. I can not desciribe the feelings I had. I am sure it is all very important. Everyone knows how many diseases are caused by flies. However I couldn't help but feel a little depressed, as I was drawing the 22nd circle with 6 legs sticking out of it, because I haven't touched a live animal for probably 4 weeks (except the dogs I run up to in the park - I know it should be the other way round, but I'm desperate). That's third year for you.

On the other hand pathology is very interesting. We have finnished the alimentary tract now - endless things can go wrong with that. We've also finished the liver, pancreas and endocrine system at break-neck speed. Terrorfying. I'm just watching the work pile up.

I've been trying to read up for my pharmacology library project. I'm to do a review of research articles about the use of pheromonatherapy as a cure for behaviour problems. It's really interesting and I'm really enjoying it. We're working as a team of 6 and we're each researching a particular area of it. I'm going to try and get the 2500 words done sometime this weekend and next weekend.

This weekend I am helping at RDA and seeing a few mates for coffee and probably lounging about on my ed watching a no-brain-required-chick-flick with a chocolate bar. I'm also going to be studying like a beaver.

Ah. Hello. Had the vet ball this weekend so still in a state of happy boogy-woogy good-feelingness! The vet ball is amazing. Even if you hate parasitology, pathology, pharmacology, animal husbandary, even if you hate animals you should still try and get into vet school just to go to this fantastic do. 600 people can't be wrong. My lovely sister always comes up and partners me (nothing dodgey - just sad - no bloke!) and we dance solidly to a jazz band, and loads of other fantastic bands. We also get thrown around the dance floor like a couple of rugby balls during the celidh. I am so achey today. Also had a fantastic meal. Och it's great.

Anyway back to it again. "It" being the most boring parasites you could possibly imagine, which are transmitted by the most boring ectoparasites you can imagine. I've had "it" all morning. And to be quite honest anymore of "it" and I will have to slam my head in a door in order to have concussion so that I can have a decent excuse to miss "it". Sorry to be so negative about it. It's just Monday morning.

I often feel a bit bad about moaning about the dryness of the third year subjects. They are dry. I think anyone will tel you that. But they an be interesting and I know it is worth keeping me chin up and working hard on them all, because I'll use this infrormation all the time in fouth and fifth year - which are more clinical- based and a lot more exciting. Yeah sure I moan about 3rd year, but don't get me wrong, all-in-all it's great and I'm still lurving it.

So. I've got pathology this afternoon - the gastro intestinal tract and a post mortem practical. then I'm playing football for the first time this term. Whoopey.

Good morning! For some reason i am well early this morning and I don't know how that happened, which makes me feel quite worried. maybe i forgot to do something vital, but all the essentials are there. i'm wearing shoes not slippers and my flies are totally done up and i wasn't using my straighteners this morning, so that suggests that I definitely didn't leave them on and I know for sure i switched the gas off. so I'm ready to start the day.

This morning it is pathology (this subject seems to be coming out of our arses at the moment, which is fine for me because it's my favourite). Then i think we have a parasitology lecture, plus a practical on protozoa and finally I have a virus tutorial. We have covered viruses completely now and so we have started working on a question sheet about all the "themes" covered by the virus lectures. It's things like virus persistance, replication, cancer causing viruses etc. Much better than just learning lists of names and good revision. So much research goes on at the vet school, people spend years working on just one virus and so they know loads, so it's quite good to have tutoorials with them ,although you have to be careful they don't over load you.

This weekend is the vet ball and I'm so excited about it. My lovely sister is coming up. The budget for it is 20 grands. Cor blimey. I'm also working on Friday night.

Cheery bye

Wahey, wahoo and wahey!!!!!!!!!!!! Got accepted onto my intercalated degree in animal welfare and behaviour this morning. Am so happy about it. I have found my "veterinary niche" with those subjects and am so pleased about having the opportunity to spend a year getting to study them properly and I'll get to design my own research project, which is very exciting. of course it means that i will have to take a year out and go to bristol, which is great for meeting new people, but bad for leaving the old luvvies behind and then moving into the year below in 2006. But I is exstatic all the same. :)

Anyway. Had a grand weekend, staying approximately soba (1 and 1/2 budweisers). Went to see a mates band, which was a bit rocky for my indi-Oasis-kind-of-self, but still a good laugh and nice to catch up. then did a wee bit of walking with my flat mate (Spar and back). Also went to work and of course did some seriours study and was quite productive really.

Have just started the liver in pathology, but now have the afternoon off. Apparently things are slackening off as we have finnished microbiology (wahooo) so we have extra time.

Lovely

I've got something really lovely to share with you today. Last Tuesday I did a post mortem. There were 6 bodies in the room. I was having a slightly crap day anyway, but things got drastically worse when my esteemed colleague and I selected the pig with the slightly bloated stomach. Anyway I could tell things were going to go a bit pear shaped when we accidently cut into the peritoneum whilst skinning it and we nearly died from the honk. Anyway what we found was that the poor thing had a rectal stricture, which essentually means that he hadn't had a poo for 2 months and all the poo was in the abdomen. It wasn't too bad really, because the pathology behind it all was really interesting and it was the first time we had been able to do a full pm alone, but I had to have a shower straight away back at home and I washed my hand ten times.

Today we started antimicrobials in pharmacology. Just going to go to the library now and write up "fluid administration in emergency and critical care" which we did sometime last century and I am so behind with pharmacology!

Have started work on my library project on pheromonatherapy. This counts towards 3.75% of our final mark this year in pharmacology. We are working in groups of 6 and each person has to write 2500 words on an area of our subject. Then we have to write a joint introduction and conclusion. I'm looking forward to it and the research I've done so far is really interesting. It's also nice to work in a group.

K bye

Got so much catching up to do now, but had such a great weekend. It involved having a super (literally - we were dressed as superheroes) pubcrawl in Cardif (totally wicked city - go there!). My Mum was Super Supervisor. I was Super Wild Woman. My mate was Super Woman. Myy other mate was Lingery Lady. My wee sis was Danger Bunny and my aunties were Super Nurse and Cool cat. None of this has anything to do with veterinary science, however.

So back to Glasgow (also a very fantastic city). I'll just tell you where I'm at in all my subjects so you can get an idea of what i'm learning.

We have done pathology of the respiratory tract now and we are about to start the histopathology practicals in that. Now we're having lectures on the pathology of the alimentary tract. It's all really interesting, but I really do have a lot of notes to catch up on now.

In microbiology we're trooping (like obese tortoises) through the RNA viruses. I moan and groan about how dry it is, but actually it's not so bad and they're trying to teach the viruses according to themes like "re-emerging diseases" and "zoonosis". That makes it all more relevant than just learning a list of names and properties.

Parasitology is protozoa. All with delightfully complicated life cycles that must be learnt. Finally pharmacology we have covered cadiac drugs and fluid therapy.

Just been doing my pharmacology Computer Aided Learning Assignments. I've got to hand the multi choice assesment in soon. This afternoon I'm going to get my teeth into my library project on pheromonatherapy. It looks great.

So that's us both nice and updated. I'm over my hangover now so i'm raring to go. Hopefully by next time I write I will be slightly closer to being caught up.

Tarah