And so the lectures came to an end. That's it. Fin. Over. They've now didactically taught everything they can and so now comes the steep practical learning curve. Eep! It's a massive relief, and very exciting, but bloody scary at the same time.

The revision continues. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to commit things to any sort of a long term memory. I'm reading about diseases and thinking, yes, that makes sense, but it's so difficult to squeeze hundreds of pathogeneses and clinical signs in one brain AND then link them up with the right disease.
Things which seem to permanently fox me include Salmonella and E.coli - not sure why, I think I just try to make them much more complicated than I need to.

Still, there's still plenty of days to go!

Pyjamas

And so the MCQ exams have finished (assuming this last one has been passed successfully)! We all rocked down in Pyjamas, looking like a uniformed bunch of upper-middle class students who'd recently been on a group trip to Jack Will's drapers and suitors (and been offered a very good deal on their latest line of baggy-slob fashion), except with more dressing gowns, and the occasional pair of slippers (though I'm sure Mr Will's do a fine line in those too). I remember seeing the 5th year one day last year, and being incredibly confused as to why they'd all, by some seemingly random coincidence (for I knew of no unifying reason why this should be so), decided that their pinkest clothes were due for an airing. It was of course their last MCQ exam, and so it is tradition that the final exam should be seen out in some sort of costume - and we chose pyjamas (by democratic vote).

Now, the examiners were entertained by this more lazy than usual attitude to morning attire that the students had taken, but the proctors were not. Apparently, we were very lucky to have been let in at all, particularly as we may have distracted the other students (who were also wearing pyjamas). Where has the fun gone in life? The turn a blind eye attitude that universities should take towards students engaging in non-violent, non-drunken daytime exam-related fun, does not seem to be forthcoming... though it would have been entertaining to see the entire year disqualified from the exam.

The exam was Clin Path (or Clinical Pathology for those less well versed in the unnecessary abbreviations of veterinary medicine) and was pretty tough, though rather invigoratingly so - it required some logic, rather than just blind regurgitation, which was nice. Helps differentiate us primates from cud-chewing ruminants don'cha'think. Hopefully it should be ok, and I can enjoy having a week where my next exam is not for 2 and a half months! Huzzah!

So dentistry day wasn't too bad.

So dentistry day wasn't too bad. The worse thing was getting up, the best things were that it was a beautiful day, and it was actually very useful. I pulled an incisor and a 2nd upper premolar, both very successfully! Huzzah!

Saturday? Dentistry? Together?

The intrepid 5th year are spending 7 hours at vet school tomorrow (Saturday) learning all about dentistry. Now, I don't mind dentistry - it's another string to the exciting bow of veterinary practice (what other profession lets you be a GP, surgeon, radiologist, dentist, business adviser and smart-ass all in one (with the possible exception of plumbers)?). I also don't mind Saturdays; in fact, I positively enjoy their usual lie-ins, and the invariable swelling of my fridge that occurs later in the afternoon.

What I don't enjoy however, is when Saturday and Dentistry conspire to coincide. With an almighty bang, like the start of the universe, but in a less exciting all-creating sort of a way. Especially bang-worthy is the fact that we have a Cardiology exam on Monday (which is pretty huge and conceptually difficult), so we're all a little unimpressed.

Still, it gives me something to moan about to anyone who doesn't have a 7 hour practical on Saturday. Bring on the sympathy

Tom.

Hearts and Vodka

A quick nod to the vet-thing, today I learnt how to listen to a horse's heart (not a moment too soon!) and managed to identify systolic and diastolic murmurs (hooray for vet-school horses). The lady who runs the stable was surrounded by one gynaecology rotation, and our cardiology rotation, which lead to the phrase "are you here for hearts or bums?" Eurgggh.

In other non-vetty news, Alex and I are planning on creating chocolate vodka. It is a simple recipe involving cocoa nibs and vodka. Instructions as follows. 1) Mix nibs and vodka 2) Wait 3) Drink vodka. My sort of cooking (though I did make a champion Teviotdale Pie this evening if I may say so myself)!

T0ӎ

p.s. It was Alex's birthday on Tuesday, which means it's shout-out time. Happy birthday Alex!

Rectalling a box - Update

An update to my earlier post about learning rectal exams using PM uteruses in a box, here's how Glasgow do it.

Despite all the wires, it's still not a patch on using real life (well, dead) material and the joys and japes of a plastic box-cow.

Morning

Good morning! Am up bright and early for a lecture on Cattle medicine. Our last lecture was really good and today we begin displaced abomasums(?, abomasi?) so should be interesting if I manage to stay awake. Am currently chugging tea to wake myself up. This time last year I'd have left already but in our new closer-to-the-vet-school house, I don't have to leave for another 5 minutes. Eeeexcellent.

Unvetty?

Having bounced round the internet a little this evening I've realised that of the vetty blogs out there (for example, or try this one)mine is distinctly un-vetty. Partly this is because I am excited by things other than vetting, and don't want to bore people with the boring details of "today in lectures I learnt...", but maybe it's a shame. I don't know really.

Interestingly, have discovered a new fun way of learning diseases. It's a game called "I have a cow...", and essentially you think of a disease and someone has to work out what is wrong with your cow in a 20 questions yes/no style. It's a bit sad, but very useful. So far this evening Alex and I have covered RDAs, Milk Fever, Pulmonary adenomatosis, caseous lymphadenitis (yes, we branched out into sheep), white line disease and coccidiosis. Huzzah!

Exam done. It wasn't great, but it was alright - it seemed to concentrate a little too heavily on being able to identify inflammatory cells (which I'm crap at).

I have loads of mouth ulcers at the moment (~12), and having just done an alimentary exam, I'm convinced I've got ulcerative stomatitis, or possibly foot and mouth disease, or even malignant catarrhal fever. The problem with veterinary knowledge! You think you have the symptoms of diseases it's impossible for you to catch. The ultimate hyperchondria!

The evening before the exam.

The evening before the exam. Alimentary is tomorrow morning. I'm not overly worried, but nowhere near as confident as I was before breeding (which I found out I passed today). It seems to have snuck up on me without me realising. I seem to have continually convinced myself that it is a few days away, and here I am with it being tomorrow morning. Still I've made notes, and been through everything at least once. There are alot of drugs with silly names that don't seem to be going in, but apart from that it's fine. The picture on the left is a photo of a skull with "lumpy jaw", caused by Actinobacillus lignersi which is essentially an osteomyelitis of the mandible. See if you can work out which species the skull is though... It's hidden in this post somewhere. WALLABY!

I've also got to go in early tomorrow to prove that I can put a bridle on a horse - I messed it up the other day (got the throatlash twisted through the top), and so have to go back to show that I do now how to do it. Should be fine, I've had a practice which was fine. Hopefully nerves won't get the better of me! I've also got to meet my supervisor tomorrow for my termly meeting, to discuss EMS gone and to come, and to check I'm still in one piece!

Small Fluffies

Today I was less muddy than your average common-or-garden vet student as I was playing with small fluffies. I handled rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, guinea pigs, degus, chinchillas, ferrets, tortoises, corn snakes, bearded dragons, salamanders, skinks, and tarantulas.

• Most surprising: Bearded Dragons - much softer than skaly skin and spines suggests
• Nastiest: Hamsters - I held one hamster, and then another. The second was convinced my hand was the other hamster and sniffed, sniffed, sniffed and then nibbled. Little sods.
• Best pet: Guinea pig all the way

Rabbit!

Rabbit!

Apparently this is the 1st thing you are supposed to say at the start of a new month. According to Tom T. I just stick with the reliable "Pinch-punch" - never fails (except when I forget).

This week has been tiring, not least because I've done two post-mortems (at about 4 hours each, spending the entire time standing up, it's quite surprisingly knackering, along with a 6-lecture day on Tuesday, and a late-night lambing shift on Wednesday. PM was quite good fun, even though our animals were lacking in anything obviously diagnostic. Nevermind - it was a good opportunity to have a good look at normal.

Also, saw Juno yesterday - a good film, and 85% happy as I described to Andrew.

PM

I spent this morning in the post mortem room, post morteming a cat. It was very interesting, but unfortunately it showed fewer lesions than we expected which meant, while we got a good chance to see what normal should be, we had nothing exciting to write up. Hopefully we'll have more luck on Wednesday!

My 1st Surgery.

Shepherding went well, though I feel the mantra may have been mistaken. It was cold, and misty - bad conditions for being a sheep-master (just imagine if it'd been an outdoor lambing hill flock!). On the plus side, we rang the vet about a pregnancy toxaemic ewe that had gone down on its legs, and she decided the best course of action was a caesarean section to whip the lambs out ASAP. She got us to draw straws for who would be surgeon's assistant (well, actually we played rock-paper-scissors), and luckily I won, so I got to stick on a waterproof top, and clean up. "Cleanliness not sterility for farm animals" was her mantra - we were performing the operation on the shed table, using an old sink as the instrument trolley and a wheelbarrow as the patient trolley to get her from the pen to the table.

I clipped her up, cleaned the site, and off we went - I got to have a go here and there, and sewed up the subcut/muscle layer, which was fab! We pulled out 2 lambs, but we could only save 1, which considering it was probably a bit premature was quite impressive.

All in all, it was a really quiet afternoon in the lambing shed, apart from the huge excitement of surgery!

Frost and Horses

This morning was incredibly frosty (see poor quality phone picture taken on the way home when most of the frost had melted). I mean, REALLY frosty. Frost everywhere. White frost. Frost frost frost. Anyway, you get the idea. It was cold, and I had to venture out to the stables for an equine clinical exam technique session. It was interesting, and I learned many exciting techniques (can finally hear gut and respiratory sounds!), but I also lost all the feeling in my fingers, which made finding pulses tough. Infact, it was so cold it was generally quite hard to find the horse. Plus I got used as a scratching post by beachball (which involved me being regularly butted across the stable by a pony - how embarrassing), and getting bitten by sway, who took a good go at my forearm with her twisted teeth. Pretty painful I must say! Luckily the huge number of layers I was wearning kept my blood (and hand) where it belonged.

Toad... Sheep?

... because I have not blogged for a few days.

I passed infectious diseases, which is a relief - thankfully my fear was unfounded; unless I was just very lucky! Either way it's done, and another hoop has been jumped through. You can't help feeling like a performing dolphin here, surrounded by unexciting surroundings (the vet school canteen is like a shoe-box for people). Plus some students are depressingly humour and common-sense less. The other day one of our lecturers inserted a wee joke in the midst of a lecture. She was basically explaining that blow-fly strike makes a mess of sheep because they burrow through the skin forming some diffuse skin lesoins and causing the wool to fall off. Eventually she put up a slide saying "they end up looking like this" (cue showing slide of a toad). Such a joke would usually pass with a snigger, and the lecture would continue. But some vets were insistant that this would be a stumbling block: "but it's not a sheep it's a toad!" they said. So, she tries to continue her joke (as you would), "nah, it's a sheep. Look, here's its head, here's its tail. I don't have any slides of toads!" etc. No, the vets would not be convinced. How could she possibly confuse a toad for a sheep!!? "But it really is a toad!", "No, it's a sheep... maybe I'll put it in your MCQs and then you'll see!".

At lunchtime some of them were saying things along the lines of "I can't believe she really thought it was a toad". "Um... I think she was telling a joke," I said. "But she was really convinced... I'm not sure she knew! We went up to her and said. I can't believe it!" I actually had to leave at this point, before I exploded. This lecturer knows what she's doing. She's a great lady - I have alot of respect for her. She can distinguish Telodorsagia from Ostertagia worms (which are MINUTE) from about 20 yards, she identified a new disease in this country (CLA), she a leading expert on sheep and other small ruminants and is a genius! I was so shocked... vet students aren't all they're cracked up to be. Correction some vet students... let's not tar us all with the same brush!

Lambinglambinglambing.

This weekend, I are be mostly lambin'. I spent 12 hours in the lambing shed on Sunday/Monday, pulling small sheep out of larger sheep. It was actually quite enjoyable; they've given us some responsibility and so we are largely required to make managemental and treatment decisions on our own (though there are many laminated sheets on the walls to remind you what you're expected to do). The morning shift was definitely the best of the two. Were were busy, but not rushed (we had 4 ewes lamb, 2 had to be assisted). I lambed quads (certainly the 1st so far, and my 1st ever), two of which were breeches! Cat dubbed me a "lambing conveyor-belt". A few days later, the quads seem to be doing well, although one has been fostered off onto a ewe with a singleton, so they're triplets now. Apart from lambing lambs, we spent hours trying to eke some life out of lamb 2**1 (don't know if I should put actual numbers up). It seems to wholly lack any ability to thermoregulate, and required an intraperitoneal injection of glucose, stomach tubing and a heat box to get its temperature up to normal (39C). It then lost the heat again as soon as we put it outside. I must admit that it's not looking bright. Still, the vast majority of the lambs are healthy and well, and the farm is much well managed and clean than any I've lambed on before.
The night shift was a bit harder - it was dark and cold, and we were sleepy, but we bashed on through, lambed 2 ewes, rang the vet at 4.30am because a ewe managed to haemorrhage everywhere (even though it had lambed 4 days before). I gave it oxytocin though (under the vet's instruction), and that seemed to stop any prolapse possibility, and the flow eventually stopped. A little stressful for 4.30am though! We also did some castration and docking, weighing, spraying, cleaning and other little chores, just to keep us warm and awake. Ah, tis a vet student's life. Still, I got home at 9, had some cereal, and slept until 2.

One bucket of welly sanitiser, £5
One digital thermometer, £3
Stethoscope, £60

Fondling a ram's testicles* at 10am in the morning, priceless.

*strictly for veterinary examination purposes.

Lambing

We've just had a small ruminants practical on abortion in sheep and goats which would have been really useful, had I read through the notes - if only there was more time, and I wasn't revising BIDDS whenever a moment for work is found! All I really want at the moment is sleep!

All 4th year students are required to help lamb the uni sheep this term, and we received our timetable yesterday. The sheep are watched 24hours (infact, 24.5 hours*) every day so everyone will at somepoint have to spend a long night in the sheep-shed. Mine are scheduled for the 3rd and the 27th Feb. Here we go again - I've only done a month of lambing!