Its time for the post midterm update! The ball has really been rollin' since my last post. Surgeries started and we have now moved into the more complicated spay procedures. We started off with neuters....thats right, we chopped off some doggie huevos. We were put in to groups of 4 and each week you rotate positions through primary surgeon, assistant surgeon, anesthetist and scrub nurse. By far the worst position is anesthetist. Sure as surgeon you have to cut, but anesthetist is responsible for the life of the patient. You're never really alone through any of the procedure, there is always a professor watching and making sure you dont screw up. But in the moment its you and its the dog and you feel as though its all riding on you. Its a great experience though. We finally feel like we are putting to use all that we have learned since starting school....its real life....not just pictures on a screen or words in a book. "BE BOLD SURGEONS" as our first term anatomy professor would say.
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| My neuter patient (face covered for confidentiality), what a champ |
I was the first up to be surgeon for the spays and I have to say they kind of just threw us in the deep end and said start swimmin'. We had videos to watch and we could ask our professors questions but nothing really prepares you for the way things look in real life. Lucky for me my spay patient "had the biggest uterus" they've ever seen in the Jr Surgery Lab......that was fun. She was also in heat so the tissues of the reproductive tract were very fragile. I had to double ligate most of the structures because of it. The surgery took hours and by the end I never wanted to do another spay again, but my professor said "if you can spay her, you can spay anyone" so that was a small consolation. We have 3 more spay procedures to go before we are done for the term.
Other than surgery we have had our hands up more cow butts, learned a little bit about dentals, and now have a guest lecturer who graduated vet school in 1959.....He is a wealth of knowledge and has had alot of cool jobs, but some of what he says is a little outdated. For example, you can use snake venom to help treat certain limb diseases in a horse....I don't think thats the first line anymore. Outside of the classroom there have been alot of fundraising events and post midterm celebrations. Some friends put together a powderpuff flag football team, but there was nothing powderpuff about it. I walked away with ripped shorts, more cuts than I could count and the desire to never play that tournament again :). It was fun for awhile but when people started tackling, complaining, and being rude I was over it. BUUUUUUTTTTT WE WON!! It was a dogfight but our team was really athletic so what we lost in football skills we gained back in fitness.
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| "Team Untouchables" |
I also went to Splash Jouvert, a party on the beach where they throw paint powder in the air and you walk out looking like a bag of skittles. I lasted about 3 hours before calling it quits and heading home, quite the impressive feat for me.
Now there is just about a month and a half left this term before heading back home for the summer. Everyone is counting down the days. Until then its a few more tests, surgery and finals. My family is also coming to visit which will be a much needed dose of home. Cant wait!!! Ill be sure to add photos post visit. Well thats about all the procrastinating I can do, time to get back to studying. Hope everyone had a happy Easter weekend
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