C=DVM

ah....break time

2009-12-19T16:16:00.000-08:00

Hey all you readers
So we finished our first quarter of vet school and are wiser, smarter, and more tired.
It was a very busy term, I will not lie. It was more stressful than I have ever experienced and it took me a few weeks to break myself into spending almost all my "free" time studying. After the first round of midterms, I learned that I needed to study even more. And even when you think you know all you can learn, you have to stuff even more info into your head! It is good to get a break, though I am bored already and have slept in til at least 11am most days this week. Going back in 2 weeks will be tough.
When vet students tell you it is harder and more time consuming than anything you've ever had, they are right. I always shrugged them off and said "I can study and have fun too" but that was wrong of me. I'm not saying you won't have time for an occasional night on the town or a quick date....but first you have to plan when to make up that time and when you are out, you feel quilty for not studying. Just ask my husband, I think he almost forgot what I looked like toward finals week. It helps that he is also in grad school and just as busy so he understands, but we don't see each other often.
Many of you are anxiously awaiting February when you will hear back from admissions as to whether you have an interview at OSU. And some of you have probably heard from other universitites by now. I cannot wait to see some of you next year. It will be good to be a second year and not the "freshman".
Anyway, enjoy Christmas break and drink tons of egg nog for me. I am currently debating on whether or not to start some endocrinology reading for Phys or to start another jigsaw puzzle.

Cheers now and into 2010
Nancy

Midterms round 1, check!

2009-11-07T12:09:00.000-08:00

Hi all, sorry for the delay in a new post (I know you were all waiting at the edge of your seat).

We've been really busy the last few weeks with the first round of midterm exams in Gross Anatomy, Micro Anatomy and Physiology. It has been many nights of up till 1am or later and many mornings of up before dawn just to get all of our studying done. It is all very tiring, I even fell asleep on the floor of MGR 288 one night. But we have survived, some a little worse for wear (dang cold!). It has been a challenge to learn how to keep up with new material when all you want to do is study for your exams. I am feeling quite behind on some of the new physiology material!

I have a few tips for you all that some of the class is learning the hard way...

1. Take an anatomy class (even if it is human)!!!!!

2. Take an anatomy class (yes I repeated it, you think it may be important?)

3. Take a Physiology class that is more involved and in depth than the ANS one, if that is your required one. I know the Zoology department offers a series. TAKE IT!

4. Take Cell and Molecular Biology! It has helped me tremendously thus far.

5. PAY ATTENTION IN NUTRITION!

6. PAY ATTENTION IN REPRO(ANS majors) (esp. gametes and early development stuff)

7. If you are not an ANS major...TAKE Reproductive Physiology from Dr. Menino! Very helpful plus, it is amazing! (Maybe I am biased from my TAing days...)

Also, The classes you are taking now are NOT useless and the better handle you have on the basics from those classes, the better off you'll be when you enter vet school the less stressful the first round, and I'm sure the following rounds, of midterms will be. Even stuff from Physics has come up already (damn it!). So please...learn the material. Don't memorize it for the test, learn it.

For those of you in the ANS department, I have a task for you...BEG Dr. Males to improve your physiology foundation and add a basic anatomy class. It is only for your benefit. I will be contacting him as well.

Oh and we've been having fun too...it isn't all head in the books (just most of it), I promise:)

Lovin' school!

Kelby

Class of 2013

OSU CVM

Week One in Review

2009-10-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

So week one is over and done, what was it like?

Well, to say the least, it is nothing like undergrad.

Like you might have assumed, the pace of professional school is a lot faster than that of an undergraduate program. Already studying for hours every night is needed to keep you up to date with all the material that is covered (I've been doing 6:30-11). Because of the short time that the professors have to teach you everything, there is a lot of assigned reading...that you actually HAVE to do. It isn't supplemental anymore! In anatomy we have started dissecting our cadavers and we are studying for a bone quiz, which will test on on every bump and divot on the bones of the thoracic limb. We have also started learning every thing about muscles and the origins, termination, innervations and actions of all the muscles in the thoracic limb. Woo! The other big difference between undergrad and professional school is, even though the days are long and you sit in the same chair the entire time, you don't get bored!!! The professors are good about relating the information to clinical stuff to remind you why you have to know it and it is stuff you like and actually want to know so you pay attention and enjoy it! The faculty also decided that moving animal handling lab to Friday afternoons was a good idea, and I agree. When we are really getting tired they take us outside and let us play with animals! What a great end to a great first week!

To all of you that just turned in your applications, GOOD LUCK! The next few months will be the longest of your life! Try not to worry about what January-March will bring you and stay focused on your goal. Have fun, relax, and continue your academic success. Fall grades do matter but so does your sanity:)

Now off to study physio and embryology. Then anatomy and reading, reading, reading! I'm loving this!

Best wishes,

Kelby M.

OSU CVM

Class of 2013

Day one

2009-09-28T21:04:00.000-07:00

Hello loyal readers
So it is now the evening of day one. It was a good day, not too long. I am now sitting at my desk preparing myself for reading Physiology. We dove right in today with 3 topics: physiology, gross anatomy, and micro anatomy. Introductions were brief and we started on material right away, which I like. There was a review of bones of the dog, cell membrane review, and staining techniques, to sum it up. Tomorrow will be a longer day, 9-5, just like a job.
It seems that more often than not there is a lunch seminar or talk going on, and we will likely get free food. Always good for us poor kids!
I hope all of you had good first days. Please, please, please send us some questions or comments. We want to help you better understand what to expect. Good luck with the rest of the week.
Nancy

The End is Near!!!

2009-09-17T20:40:00.000-07:00

Since Nancy and Kelby managed to already post to this blog, I thought it would be important that I join in on the action before my break ends. The first thing I would like to put out there is that I am not writing this blog to talk about my life and how crazy awesome I am, but to give pre-vet students an insight into vet school and what they can do to become better applicants (I might be exaggerating the crazy awesome a little bit since the highlight of my summer was watching the entire Battlestar Galactica series.).

Even though I am not blogging about my personal life, I think it is pertinent to give everyone a little background on my involvement in the veterinary field. My first experience in veterinary medicine was as a volunteer at McKenzie Animal Hospital during my freshman year of high school. I spent a lot of time cleaning up various forms of feces and learning about vet medicine and because of my expert feces-cleaning skills (or work ethic), I was eventually hired.

During my undergrad, I started working at the histopathology lab at the vet school where I learned about really cool things that apparently aren't very cool to the vast majority of the population (Because of this I will not be discussing how awesome immunohistochemistry is). Even though some might not find histotechnology or pathology interesting, I do, so I spent this summer staining slides in histo and getting covered in/cleaning up blood and feces in necropsy.

Now that all of that stuff is out of the way, I have a few important random things to say:

This blog will hopefully be updated at least weekly and if Kelby, Nancy, and I are unable to post, I will at least try to keep using twitter.
This blog is also not a one-way conversation. If you have questions or comments, please write them in the comments section. We will try to respond as much as possible. Be sure to click the "Follow" button on the sidebar so we know that people are actually reading the blog.
To all of you pre-vet club members: Get involved and stick with the club. The PVMA is full of great opportunities and will help you learn a lot about veterinary medicine.

So hopefully this blog will be of use to everyone who reads it. If not, please feel free to mention that in the comments section. I will try to do the whole twitter thing during orientation and I will put up a post sometime late next week. Until then, I am going to savor the last bit of time I have left before school starts by gorging on junk food and watching many hours of TV.

Thanks

2009-09-16T21:11:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to say Thanks to all of those who are going to read this. I sent out the link to many people who are important to me and have helped me to get where I am now. So this will be for not only the pre-vet students, but those of you who would like to know what goes on in the days, weeks, months of a vet student.
As I sit here recovering from surgery yesterday - I had an upper incisor pulled, long story about it getting damaged when I was 12... - I think about all the people who have encouraged me along the way. There is my husband, Eric, who told me to follow my dream, no matter the cost in money or time. He wants me to do what I dream and supports me 100%. My parents have been there all along to tell me how proud they are of me. My grandma Chilla has been one of my biggest supporters, bragging to all her friends about how I am going to be an animal doctor soon.
And then there are all the friends along the way. Libby and Robby Mock, in Montana, for example. Thank you to them for teaching me so much, especially about customer service. That will always be a big part of my job, knowing how to respect everyone and be there to help. There are all my coworkers, who are also great friends, at West Hills. They never doubted me. There are all my friends from classes and the pre-vet club. You guys were there to tell me of course I'll get in and you believed in me when I didn't believe in myself.
There are so many people I want to thank...and I hope to see many of you in the years to come as incoming vet students and many of you I hope to see at my huge graduation party in 2013!
I promise this will be my last sappy blog. I am on some things for the pain, so don't mind me. From now on it will be about the experiences of school, the ups and downs, the new friends, the triumphs, and the hardships that will be endured along the way.
I will see some of you soon and I miss many of you.
Nancy

Almost there

2009-09-10T12:28:00.000-07:00

Hello all

I just wanted to let all of those who are now applying for vet school that it is worth it. I remember about a year ago I was thinking "Wow, if I get in, it will be about one year from now that I start!" And man, how that year has flown by. I am still in shock that I got in, and I am so excited to start. Just know that the hard work, and the stress, and the hours spent thinking what to put on your personal statement....they are all worth it.

I hope to be able to post on this blog occasionally, to let you know how things are going and give you guys ideas as to what to expect. I have never been a great write so I apologize for that in advance. Please let me know if you have any questions at all and if there is anything you are curious about regarding school and such.

As an update on my ever-growing excitement about starting, there are only 18 days to go. Tomorrow is my last day of work at West Hills Animal Hospital, though I will go there to work over holidays as needed. My next few weeks before school are busy....Grandma from Michigan coming to visit, tooth extraction surgery, BBQs, orientation, cleaning, buying books, signing away my life for loan money, stressing about what to wear for my first day....just kidding about that last one.

Anywho, just hang in there for those with a few years left of undergrad. And again, for those applying, try not to think about all the time between now and February when you hear if you get an interview. It will fly by, trust me.

Have a good few weeks of summer left and keep visiting this site....we'll keep you interested (I hope)

Nancy C.
Former pre-vet club activities coordinator
Current OSU CVM Class of 2013 student!

25 days and counting...

2009-09-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

Hello all OSU PVMA-ers and welcome to the blog Brian is making us contribute to. Brian is full of wonderful ideas!! :P

(He is my roommate, I am allowed to make fun of him).

Well, I am sooooo anxious to start it is ridiculous. This month is going to go by too slow... until it starts and I have my face plastered in a book, then I'll wonder where it went. I want to start so bad!! I am curious how it will be. I decided to take this month off of work to prepare my little brain for all the things that I will be cramming in there shortly. Everyone suggested I take the time off but now I really miss work. For all of you that don't know I work for an Equine Hospital, a large animal hospital near PDX and have been for 3.5 years. They are the reason I am here now. My last day was...one to remember... the other doctors were off so it was just Dr. R (affectionately called "Shak"). Shak worked on a race track in Puerto Rico before coming to OR. We love her. Great doc!! Anyhoo... We had a very busy few days and a couple very sad euth's. Saturday we volunteered to pick a patient up in West Linn that needed to be hospitalized. I got home around 9pm, fed the horses and just came inside to eat(STARVING!!) and I get this text: "Now I get to go see a cow that has been in labor for 24 hours! :)" Shak LOVES cows;), she's been avoiding them like the plague ever since she came to EFEH a year ago. She saw 3 this week. So I volunteered to "be on call" if she needed my help, like any good tech would do. She didn't hesitate, so at 10pm we arrive at the farm where a first time heifer was standing in the corner of an orchard, back bent up and straining with lights from 3 pick ups and a tractor pointed on her. The old man ropes her and tries to tie her to a tree and she proceeds to unravel herself and run him over. Shak and I look at each other like..."f@$k!!" They finally get her tied to an apple tree and we gather our calf jack(put together by Dr. Asmar, Shak hasn't pulled a calf since her 3rd year in vet school...8 years ago, thanks David!!) and calving tote with head snares, and chains, hooks and gigli wire. It is a tote of mid evil tools. Shak gloves up while I mix the J-Lube. For those of you that haven't had the pleasure of working with J-Lube...you must. Powdered lube you mix with water. A tablespoon can make a gallon and it is nasty stuff. She sticks her hand into the vulva and pulls out a tail....once again...f*&k! Sticks her hand in farther, also sideways....double f$%k! Of course the cow lays down, so we have to get on the ground. Both of us taking turns pulling and pushing and straining with all our might and one of the old cowboys says, "Look at us, three strong men standing around watching two women do all the hard work." You said it. After an hour..I think...time goes slowly with dystocias.. and both of us trying head snares and chains to turn it around we look at each other and know that a fetotomy (cutting the calf in pieces to get it out of the uterus) is a must. Mind you the calf had been dead for quite sometime. All you ANS majors will learn in Applied Repro(cause you should take it!!) that if a calf hasn't come out in 2 hours after the water breaks, it needs help so it doesn't suffocate...this one had been 18 hours past that. So we get out the handles and gigli wire and fish for a way to get it around the hips. No chance, one leg cut first. My turn...Now we have got the hips cut where we want...just at the ball of the femur. Trying to get that piece out was miserable because the calf slipped into the pelvic opening and every time the cow pushed a bone we cut would jam into your arm. I have bruises. Time for the calf jack(best invention ever)!! 2am rolls around and we get it out. Antibiotics, oxytocin, banamine and dexamethasone and we are on our way. Back to the clinic at 2:45am. Covered in manure, mud, urine, blood, amniotic fluid and of course J-Lube. We smelled disgusting. What a great look into my future. Large animal kids get excited...this is what you have to look forward to! I love every minute of it!! Great picture, huh?! Shak and I were dying laughing on the way back to the clinic.

So now I am home, trying to relax and not think about work. I need to find something fun to do but all I am doing is applying for scholarships! Money is needed! I'm taking advantage of every opportunity. I'm even applying for a swine internship. After this week, I learned from Shak that you never know what you'll get presented even if it is so far from what you imagined you'd be doing one day. Cows are not horses, but you have to be prepared. Why not get some pig experience? Who knows what I might see one day when I am the doctor. I don't want to be caught off guard. Plus, it comes with a $3300 grant for a month of work :O!! Cha-ching!

Praying the next few weeks go fast so I can start my dream.

Wishing you all the best of luck!

Kelby Myers

Class of 2013

OSU CVM