Diary of a Vet Student

I can’t believe this term is nearly over L It’s been awesome. Apart from the reain I’ve had a great time. I think it was great to intercalate away and then be able to come back and meet a whole new year. You’re forced to go out more and be a sociable as possible (yes, because you have no friends at first – eek). Feel quite nice and settled now, so next term should be good.

Having said all that, this week has been all about CLA hell. That’s the group project everyone in forth year is working on. My group are lovely and I’ve had a nice time getting to know them all, just wish we could have got acquainted over a few nice beers, rather than in the needles-into-eyelids way that is CLA. It’s a research project, on the toxicity of phenylbutazone in horses at the Weiper’s centre, but it’s been a trawl to get to the 3000 word report we handed in on Friday. Anyway, it’s in now and we’ve just got the presentation next week. Ug and crap. All worth doing though as it can bring your final grade up one.

Also been learning all about goats and deer, which was very relaxing. Did a practical on meat inspection too, which was delicious. We’re also doing oncology in small animal lectures at the moment, so chemo and radiotherapy stuff.

Thanks to CLA social happiness has been at subzero levels all week apart from a nice late night “Love actually” mush session on Tuesday night. Luckily fantastic year rep had arranged a big year night out on Friday, with Xmas dinner and a cheesy club session. A good night was had by all. Ho ho ho.

Can’t believe it’s all over this Friday. I’m going skiing. Yay. But not quite ready to leave bonny Glasgee just yet. Ah.

Until next term then…Merry Xmas. Mwah. xxx

Work has been the order of the day this week. Got me knickers in a twist earlier on due to lack of recent (and distant) progress in this area. We're doing alimentaryin companion animal lectures at the mo. We've just started doing equine colic and endotoxaemia and dental problems. Interesting. Anyway I'm trying to read over me lectures.

Sadly sheep lectures are coing to an end now in farm lectures (eek). We did neurological problems (lots scrapie) and gastrointestinal problems (wormies) this week. Had a practical in how to trim cattle hooves. Snot easy you know. We watched a dem on a real live cow, then had a go at some dead legs and hooves. Bit dodgey really,because the legs kept flying off the vices and I had a blunt knife.

Did a communication practical, which was dead weird. Ten of us in a room watching a tv screen, filming another poor sole in th next room taking a patient history from an actor. It was alright actually and quite useful. Also had a nice wee suturing practical.Bit cack handed with the old surgical instruments tho. will take a bit of practise.

Anyway the fear subsided on Friday and spent the whole day (after lectures of course) shopping. Got all me Christmas stuff done, including present for awkward awkward boyfriend. Ug. Continued Christmas feeling by going along to vet school Christmas panto that night. Bit too much inuendo for someone as sweet and innocent and me. Can't quite escape one or two mental images I aquired. Anyhoos spent Saturday in edinburgh at a capoeira "batizado" which was awesome. watched some amazing masters fighting.

This week is brilliant already, because we just bought a Xmas tree. wehee. It's nearly time. Ho ho ho.

Ello

Another busy week. tried to snatch a few precious moments in the library wherever possible. The pressure's off at the moment though, because there are no christmas exams in fourth year (just a few monstrous scary ones in march and May). Therefore I have no fear and thus no drive to study. I'm sure it'll all come back and hit me in the face next year!

Cattle lectures are all over now. We did our last ones on trace elements and macro minerals earlier in the week. Started sheep now and just been doing a bit about abortion and stuff like that. Done some good practicals this week. It's my farm week so I did mastitis tests on cows and fertility checks on bulls on Tuesday. Mastitic milk goes really globby when you mix it with detergent in a Californian milk test. Bull's testicles should be even, with no swellings or adhesions. You have to be trained to squeeze a bull's testicles, so don't try it at home.

In companion animal studies we're continuing our trawl through the alimentary track. At the moment we're having quite a few surgical lectures, which is a bit confusing as we haven't done any surgery yet. It's all very celver stuff though.

And on the other side of my exciting veterinary student life I've been practising my capoira. Can do some good kicks now, but still land on my face every tinme I try to do a right-sided cartwheel.

Went to a nice house party/gathering on thursday night. Had some good chat, but was bnack in me bed by midnight. I spent the weekend with the Bristol Massif at their soiri and open mic nights. Had so much fiun and it was great to meet up with all the nise people I met intercalating down there last year.

Now here I am back in Glasgow. Just been over to the vet school (I live next door) to print out this week's notes but all the computers are down (which is a bit of a bummer) so i will have to get up bright and early to print them off tomo. So now it's bed time.

When oh when will it stop raining? This weather is totally ridiculous. I'm a bit of a reptile and the recent baltic conditions have meant that I'm spending 75% of my time cold and/or wet. Knowledgable flat mate suggests buying wooly hat to reduce heat loss. Unfortunately at moment due to previous excessive expenditure on clothes, chocolate, alcohol and skiing holidays woolly hats are no longer in the relm of "affordable". Unfortunately me current budget is also relcutant to stretch towards "shows without holes in" and thus have at least 1 chillblaine on all of my toes except the two big ones (I'm really not exagerating).

Anyway, fortunately none of the above misery has anything to do with vet school, which is what I should really be writing about.

This post-AVS week has been ultra quite for everyone. I really think it's taken me 7 days to recover from last weekend.

Anyway it's been nice (ahh). I'm doing a group project on phenylbutazone toxicity at the mo and we've spent loads of time this week writing our report. There's more to come. We've 3000 word to do plus a presentation for the end of term. Eek.

Had our last public health post mortem session the other day. Learnt about captive bolt guns and did some more liver/lung/heart examinations of carcasses from the slaughter house. We need to be able to identify abnormalities that make food unsuitable for human consumption.

We've been doing the alimentary system in companion animal studies. This is nice. lots of lectures entitled "Causes of Diarhoea and vomiting", "Approach to diarhoea and vomiting" or "The therapeutics of diarhoea and vomiting". Also been doing more metabolic diseases in cattle.

Other than that saw the new bond film this week. Awesome. Made lots of comforting food for a few nice people (Ainsley's brownies -mmm). Went to pub for a nice beer.

The end.

Hello then.

It's been an awesome week. Wednesday night was "Dick Day" in Glasgow. We're allowed to call it that. It's the day when Glasgow and edinburgh vet schools get together and play a lot of sport and do a lot of partying. I'm not sure what the run up to Dick Day is like for the Dick vets but in Glasgow it's a bit of a big deal. For weeks there's been dick day propaganda plastering the corridors of the vet school, encouraging us to support our "dream teams". And it really was a day of dreams because for the first time in centuries our ladies beat the Ed rugby team and so did the boys, which of course prompted an unsightly display of traditional manly chanting and semi-nakedness (it was quite cold).

After the sports everyone hit the town for a pub crawl and lots of crazy dancing in the Arches. I love the Arches.

Anyway. The big week continued. On Friday it was AVS. This is another sports weekend held by the Association of Veterinary Students. Although I've never seen anyone playing sports so I think someone must have made that bit up. Basically on Friday night all the vet schools met up in Liverpool (alright ey ey). Everyone had a theme and Glasgow was circus. Friday night was a big bonanza in cream on saturday yet another pub crawl followed by Collin Murray in the union. Awesome. Had so much fun and it was great to see all the people I met last year in intercalating in Bristol.

Anyway now I'm a very tired lady and so I'm staying in tonight to watch Lord of the Rings witha big cheese sandwich.

I also had some lectures last week, whcih were all very important. We've been doing the urogenital tract in companion animal medicine, including lots of imaging stuff. Large animal has been all baout cattle lameness abortion and sudden death syndromes (eek). Also did some practicals. One was about urine analysis - using dipsticks and refractometers. I got urine everywhere in that one. Also did a practical in history taking.

Sorry I've not written much about work this week, but AVS is such a massive event. Got a biot carried away. Next week I will be far more of a steady eddy.

x

Halloo there nice bloggers. Last week was a big fat mastitis week. I learnt all about how somatic cell counts and bactoscans and all the things that can make them go up and down. So that was good fun. We did a few more orthopaedic lectures in the companion animal side of things. Including fractures that go wrong and hindlimb lameness in the cat. Practical - wise I spent a thrilling half hour learning how to write prescriptions - capitol letters and special phrases which safe guard your delicate veterinary backside. Also spent some time learning aboiut fine needle aspirates - sticking needles into lumps of tissue and using all the glob and gunk to make a smear on a slide. I liked doing that.

Went to an intensive capoeira session on money where I was the onl one in the class who didn't know how to do a supergalactic loop-the-loop spinny kick. Subsequently spent the majority of the session jumping from foot to foot and avoiding a kick in the head.

The rest of the week was devoted to decorating our petit mason avec beaucoup des amazing halloween things ready for the pre hut party on Thursday night. all four flatmates made pumpkins, but everyone said mine looked a bit camp so enough said about that.

The hut - for those that do not know is the grandest party venue at glasgow vet school. For the uninitiated it is a tv common room by day and a thumping discoteque bu night (although only certain nights). Unfortunately for those that have been initiated the hut is a potential
disaster area especially at Halloween where too much party atmosphere and fizzy pop can see you land witches hat over witches broom.

So the hut party was fun and I can proudly announce that despite ending the evening in a less than lady like manner, i was up bright and breezy for lectures in the morning.

Weekend was nice - just went home to see family and here I am again.

Hello nice ladies and gentlemen

I have got my timetable to hand for this blog, because without it I'm sorry to say that i wouldn't have a scooby dooby about what I've done this week. According to the time table I attended a herd fertility and reproductive examination lecture on Monday morning and yes I can vaguely remember being taught how to examine testicles etc (still talking about cattle here). We also had lots of lectures this week on "the reproductive cycle of the cow and how to manipulate it". I can remember these lectures mainly because they were so painful. I had a cold at the time and for unfortunately "the reproductive cycle of the cow and how to manipulate it" doesn't really soothe your sinuses . Also had some nice equine lameness lectures and a bit of "animal welfare in the slaughter house" .

I had two farm practicals this week one on history taking and the other on clinical examinations of cows. Managed to destroy me wellies in the first one, by offering foot to an inquisiive piggy with big mouth and no mercy.

The rest of the week's was nice and steady . Got rid of wild "live it large" sister on monday morning and mourned her departure all day long (she's ma wee sis after all). Went to capoeira on Monday, but traded my Wednesday night yoga session for curry and a cinema session with an old friend who was getting even older that day. On Thursday long lost boyfriend arrived from Bristol and so I've been wining and dining him ever since . It's a hard old life so it is.

Byese bye