A good night's work.

Day 7. Knackered tonight. Did a TB test this morning, on over 220 crazy beef cattle. Each took a run up to the crush and attempted to crash through it. Every time there was an awful crash, and I thought more than once that the metalwork was about to disintegrate. I also got my hand smished against the crush by an angry Limousin cow when I tried to read her teeny-tiny metal eartag without forfeiting my skull's integrity. It's now an interesting shade of green (my hand, not the cow). We did get lunch afterwards though, which almost made up for the pain and the earache.

Also jagged eighteen ewe lambs with a drug to make them abort after a neighbours ram lamb got in with them and got a bit too friendly.

This afternoon we had a therapeutics tutorial that was very helpful - I want to do more stuff like that at Uni. I finished about 1715 and the other two went out on calls.

I was on call last night. I was hoping for a quiet night, given that it's been quiet all week. I was woken at 0330 by the duty vet, to go out to a ewe caesarean. By the time we got there, the crisis had passed and we were able lamb the ewe quickly and return to bed. I thought that would be it for the night, but another call came in at 0600 - a cow caesar. After that we had to treat some calves at the same farm, and it was after breakfast before I got in again.

Just my luck - none of the other students have had to get out of bed when they've been on call yet!

Day 3

Our first weekday of the rotation. I got to do lots today - trim feet, jag cows, put a cow down, and disbud calves. And we finished at 5pm. And I even managed to watch some TV tonight!

Luckily I didn't have to go out on any calls once I'd gone to bed last night. I did answer the phone once, but didn't have to get out of bed. Yay for distant farms!!

*Yawn*

End of Day 2.

Just back from a 3 hour farm call, lambing a ewe. We left behind a shellshocked ewe and two rather stunned lambs. This was my only callout on today's shift - but I'm on call tonight too.

Currently praying to the god of ruminants that they all behave themselves tonight - I'm tired!

Far from home

It's the end of my first day on our next rotation. Yes, I know it's a Saturday.

The next two weeks, we're seing practice with proper farm vets, doing proper farm-vetty stuff. We're staying in a nice hotel in the countryside, although the weather could do with some improvement. We arrived to two inches of snow, but this has since melted. I hope it stays away - going out to calls in the middle of the night isn't much fun when one has to wade through slush!

Luckily I'm not on call tonight, so I get to sleep.

End the cattle; bring on the sheep!

Today was my last day at Lisburn. I really enjoyed the last two weeks – all the staff there are encouraging and really nice. And I actually got to do stuff (I’m now semi-proficient at putting a cow down with barbiturates) and it’s surprising how much one remembers when faced with several sick cows and an anxious farmer. I’ve decided to make the practice my base practice – one which I go back to every so often during my last two years – and I’ve booked another two weeks EMS there for September (told you we didn’t get much of a holiday).

The only thing I’m slightly surprised about is that I didn’t see a single caesarean or calving – working at a large animal vets at calving/lambing time, I expected to see at least one of those! Suppose there’s always next year…

(And if anyone from Lisburn is reading this: no, I’m not going to text him!!!!)

I’m now mid-way through my Easter holidays. I start lambing on Monday, at a farm I’ve been working at for four years, and I’m looking forward to it. It means long hours and not much sleep, but I enjoy it, and I won’t feel so bad about not studying cats and dogs when I’m out working all day from before dawn to after dark! And this year I’ll actually be able to remember all the vetty things like dose rates of drugs and vaccinations and minor surgical procedures, having just spent the last two weeks doing farm work.

Vet students and holidays are mutually exclusive

Got back in one piece yesterday. The bus was late (roadworks again) but we made it to the boat on time. Unfortunately some random person I’d never met before attached themselves to me and followed me onto the bus and all around the boat, and would not stop talking for the whole journey. Was relieved to escape into the car in Belfast!

The ceilidh on Friday was very good, if not a bit crowded. Over 150 people showed up in a small enough hall, so we were all nursing bruises and crushed toes yesterday morning! There was also a shortage of guys; the university is really going to have to redress the male:female ratio at vet school (in our year it's currently 1:4!)

I start a two-week EMS placement in Lisburn tomorrow morning. For the uninitiated, EMS stands for Extra-Mural Studies. Why the university can’t just call it Work Experience, like everybody else does, is beyond me. As part of our course we have to do 26 weeks of clinical EMS (working at vet practices) during our last few years at vet school – and all of this has to be done during the holidays, so, as you can imagine, vet students don’t get much time off.

So tomorrow I’m off to see some large animal practice, my first since I started vet school. Not really sure what to expect, as the last time I saw large-animal work, I was a humble school work-experiencee, and hadn’t a clue. Now I’m a vet student, though I still haven’t a clue – we’ve done the theory, but the practicalities of being a vet aren’t covered until final year.

I am looking forward to it though – I went to this practice last summer and survived, and it’ll be nice to finally get out and see some proper vet stuff!

Last night in Glasgow

I spent this morning packing and sorting paperwork, as I go home tomorrow. I mean to study small animal stuff over Easter - knowing me I probably won't do any work at all, and end up lugging all my notes back to Glasgow unopened in April.

Off to the end-of-term ceilidh now - one of the good things about being a vet student is that everybody knows how to have fun!

The results have gone up and my number isn’t on the list - phew! This means I’ve passed and can forget the remainder of what I know about cows and sheep without guilt.

The CIC results are out later today. I really hope I don’t have an oral as I haven’t done any work all week and have forgotten most of what I learned for the exam.

I meant to do some small animal revision this week, but procrastination prevailed. I’ve been in PM room most of the week, and saw a few interesting (if horrific) cases from the SSPCA. Some may go on to the courts so can’t talk about them here, but it’s shocking what some people do to animals.

Had my last driving lesson before Easter last night. Tried to dissuade my instructor from making me do my test but I don’t think he fell for it.

CIC exams finished

We had our last written exam on cows, sheep and pigs yesterday. It went marginally better than I expected – I managed to avoid answering anything on cattle reproduction (again), and in the pig exam there was an essay question on Salmonella. I gave them a step-by-step account of my summer project so I really hope RM isn’t marking it or the anonymity of my exam will be out the window! The multiple choice and true/false questions were mean, but we were expecting that anyway. Really hoping I’ve passed – I don’t want to spend my summer studying ketosis, Aujesky’s and BSE et al all over again.

I had another driving lesson this morning. My instructor is talking about the test again – he seems to think I’ll be ready for it soon whereas I would still much rather be walking.

I really, *really* don’t like reverse parking.

Exam results are out next week. Help!

Last minute revision!

CIC bad. Very bad.

SRM and slaughtering and inspections, oh my!

Had our Public Health practical exam today. I identified almost everything correctly but a lot of us had issues with the ticky boxes we were supposed to use to answer the questions. I think I’ve passed but I won’t know for sure until the oral list goes up next week.

Just realised we still don’t have our CLA marks back yet. Starting to get slightly annoyed with CAS folk.

Help!

Just in from driving lesson number 18.

Instructor decided I should try reverse parking.

Still not happy going backwards.

Knees shaking.

Was woken this morning by a noisy Class-37 double-ender train going past my window not long after 8am. I hate trains.

We're almost at the end of lectures for this term. Large animal lectures finished last week, and we only have one more week of small animal lectures before we get a week's study leave for the exams coming up.

This week saw us sitting through lectures on horse reproduction and foal care (a bit like the horsey part of the vet TV series on BBC1 at the moment) and a three-hour seminar on tortoises and snakes (with some excellent anecdotes, none of which I am going to repeat here!). I find reptiles and amphibians challenging - more and more, people are expecting vets to be experts on everything, and as we only get three hours on reptiles and nothing on amphibians, it's hard to know where to start!

I've also been helping post-mortem more otters this week - it's nice to have somewhere to go to during the week, that isn't in any way associated with studying or course work - although it does make for good revision!

Off now for a driving lesson. Somehow not looking forward to it this morning!

Woohoo!

Passed my Theory test with full marks!!

Woot!

Had an interesting day today.

After my driving lesson this morning (don't ask), I went up to the vet school for the annual Zoological Society Symposium, which lasted all day. There was some really interesting stuff - including a talk on Avian Influenza, especially relevant due to the outbreak in Suffolk this week.

Last night was Mr Vet School 2007. For the uninitiated (and therefore still sane) readers of this blog, MVS is an excuse for vet students to get together and get drunk, for the guys to wear as little as possible and the most ourageous dresses (yes, dresses) they can find, and to get the staff socialising (read: as drunk as possible) with the students. Dodgy as it sounds (and is) it's always a fun night out!

Got my driving theory test on Tuesday so now need to go revise.

I hate studying!

Snow!

It actually snowed today, so of course I had to make something with it. A friend helped me construct a 6 foot tall snow otter outside the PM room during our lunch hour. I was a spanner and forgot my camera so R + M got some good photos for me this afternoon.

The Snotter!

Happy New Year!

It's a long time since my last post.

Got a bit caught up in our CLA project towards the end of last term, but we got the written paper in and the presentation went ok, so we're just awaiting our results now. Then it was home for Christmas and two weeks of EMS at a local practice.

But now I'm back in Glasgow and we have eight weeks of farm animal left. Panic starting to kick in!!

Hairballs

I got a trichobezoar (hairball from the stomach of a cow) from the vet school today. Not entirely sure what I'm going to do with it but it looks pretty cool.

...

Just back from driving lesson number 11. Hands still shaking.

Stupid rain.

23 days to Christmas

Never trust easyJet. They say your flight is delayed by 20 minutes, then leave you sitting in the departure lounge for another hour. On the plus side, my bags didn't get searched this week when I went through security, which makes a change (do I really look like I'm plotting to blow something up?!). But enough of last weekend.

Sheep lectures continued this week with neurological disease on Monday, respiratory disease on Wednesday and skin diseases on Thursday. In CAS we're still doing alimentary conditions - although we did move on to horses, with colic and dentisty lectures. I'm finding CAS quite frustrating at times, because we kept getting told about fancy surgical techniques and treatment protocols, but as we haven't done anything on surgery/suturing/therapy yet, nobody understands what the lecturers are talking about.

Practical-wise I had a free afternoon CAL session on Monday, and Public Health Practical 3 on Thursday. I'm one of the few people in my year who actually like vet public health, and I always enjoy the chance to get to the PM room (though my family would argue I spend more time in the PM room than I do in the flat...). This week we had chickens (of the feathered, and not the scared, variety) and more pathology specimens. I thought I was up to scratch with my meat inspection, but I'm starting to forget stuff that I know I knew a few weeks ago. And the exam isn't for four months!!!

Went to the vet school panto last night - this event is held every year by the fifth years (so our turn next year) and both final year and the staff have a sketch were they take the mickey out of everyone and everything. It was worth going to just to see some of the outfits (think pink and ballerina-like) - just wish I'd remembered my camera!

Another week bites the dust

Another week bites the dust...

We've started sheep lectures, which are like cattle lectures, but with a few, slight changes. Included in the sheep course this week was what to do with sick sheep at lambing time, something I have a lot of experience with and so I found those lectures more enjoyable than the rest!

Sheep medicine is compounded by the fact that often, the first sign of disease is death. Which makes treating said disease quite difficult. This, coupled with the fact that most farmers will now treat their own sheep, means that vets don't see much sheep work outside of lambing time. It's a shame, because I quite like sheep work (I just find angry sheep less intimidating than angry cows) and would quite like to do it when I graduate - without having to go and work in Cumbria or other sheep-orientated places (no jokes about Aberdeen or Wales please).

In the companion animal course we're still on alimentary medicine (diarrhoea and gut surgery this week), which is more interesting than orthopaedics, but still not that exciting. Although I'm sure I'll change my mind when I'm in practice and get an emergency volvulus case at 3am, and would much rather have a simple fracture!

Practicals this week consisted of communication skills on Monday and prescription writing on Thursday. The comm skills class was very good - I didn't learn much from it because I've taken communication classes before, but we all spent three hours laughing at each other so it wasn't all that bad! The prescription practical was very short, but is something that it's important for us to do - when owners or vets get instructions mixed up the consequences can be dire!

Off home for the weekend, not looking forward to passing through the airport with the current state of affairs - those who know me know airports and RDX do not go together!

What are Saturdays for?

Saturdays are for sleeping...

Saturdays are for eating...

Saturdays are for playing...

Saturdays are for playing jokes on friends...

and Saturdays are for smiling...

Saturdays are not for working!!!!!

Stupid weather

Well, it reached freezing point last night but no snow yet :(

In Runescape I'm now on Level 10 in Mining, Level 5 in Smelting, Level 10 in Woodcutting and my Strength is at 5 (I'm a wuss, I know). I've scrounged lots of random items that I've no idea how to use so I've stored them all in the bank in the hope that some day I'll be able to use them.

Why does studying have to be so boring?

Temperature's dropping...

Had driving lesson number 9 this morning - today's lesson was reversing around a corner and driving in heavy traffic. Quite pleased as I didn't stall today, but not enjoying the start-stop-start-stop of rush hour driving. I also negotiated Anniesland Cross for the first time and managed to not end up halfway to Dumbarton (don't laugh, it's happened before). Had another nightmare last night about brakes not working (thanks Richard! :P) but thankfully the brakes were working fine on the little Corsa this morning!

After being introduced to it during the week, I finally decided to join RuneScape today and registered a new character at lunchtime. It's now 8pm and I've spent the entire afternoon learning how to chop down trees, catch shrimps, smelt iron ore and cook chicken. I'm quite proud of my Level 8 cooking ability and the QP I got for completing my first Quest. I'm not so proud of the fact that, once again, I've done bugger all work today.

Apparently it's snowing down in Ayr at the moment and the weather front is heading this way - now that driving's over for a few days I'm hoping we get at least a few flakes!