5th Term Begins...Surgery, Cow Butts and Horse Uteri

5th term. The start of our final year on the island. The term we start surgery, care for our own patients, and choose which clinical school we will be attending. That's not terrifying at all! 4th term ended with a fabulous visit from 3 of my best friends from home/college. The first night they were here I took them to the local bar/club called Bananas for a real Grenada night out. Now those of you who know me well know I am not a party person. None the less we went out, had some drinks, enjoyed the night and came home and immediately went to bed. Got my Bananas fix for the next year. That weekend we went on an amazing catamaran trip with Carib Catz. We sailed up the west coast of the island to Flamingo bay where we spent about an hour snorkeling above the reef. Our next stop was the worlds first and largest underwater sculpture garden. It was very exciting to see the new additions to the sculpture park and even more fun to see everyone bobbing around. The crew was great and made sure our cups were never empty and the music was always bumpin. Fantastic day

Other than the boat trip our only other big excursion was a guided tour led by one of my friends up to 7 sisters waterfall. Its deep within the Grand Etang Rainforest but the hike is moderate and the water at the falls is cold and refreshing. Not to mention you can jump off of them, which we all did reluctantly.

Birthday dinner at Dodgy Dock restaurant. Yes my friends did get the steel drum band to play happy birthday and sing to me in front of everyone. Embarrassing but I love them for it. The trip wasn't long enough, as anyone on vacation laments but it was a great experience of this beautiful island.











 Term 5 as I mentioned earlier is crazy busy and somewhat nerve-wracking because we actually start having a "case load" in the form of our surgery patients. We are split into groups and have to rotate between the positions of surgeon, assistant surgeon, anesthetist and scrub nurse. We are the ones doing everything from pre op to surgery to post op. Its scary but also very exciting. My group has dubbed themselves "50 Shades of Spay". Everyone takes the chance to make fun of local pop culture and mix it with spay or neuter terms. Other classes this term include Small animal med, large animal surgery, small animal surgery, theriogenology, diagnostic imaging, intro to clinical practice, and junior surgery. Sounds exciting right? Well just this morning I had a lab on bovine pregnancy detection and palpation. How might you detect pregnancy in a cow??? Well you have the glorious job of sticking your hand in the cows rectum and palpating various reproductive structures. Just what you want to do at 8:30 AM on a Friday. Its great fun actually. The cows here are very domesticated and while they probably hate being guinea pigs, they tolerate our learning very well.

Its going to be a fun but exhausting term. More pictures and funny stories to come I'm sure. Sending warmth and sunshine back home to everyone still buried under snow. Until next time.