Week 3: Yes I can

I never knew a 4 day week could be so long.  We started out week on Tuesday with our first vet school exam, physiological chemistry.  I was extremely nervous going in and had very low expectations, but I was pleasantly surprised that I knew most of the answers and felt the exam covered the material fairly and in a straight-forward fashion.  I was by no means the top of my class, but comfortably in the middle, right at the mean and very pleased with my performance.  Bio-chem is without a doubt the hardest subject for me so far, but I am becoming accustomed to the sometimes-frenetic pace of the lectures.  I started with the conservative goal of passing and thus not having to take the class again.  After this exam, I may have to raise my expectations because even though the exams get harder and cover more material, now I know what to expect, and oh yeah, I CAN do this.

From my exam, I went to get the first of three rabies vaccinations that I will need.  Generally no biggie, it didn't hurt much, but I went home and promptly fell asleep, although I'm not sure whether it was the exam stress or the vaccine or some interaction effect of the two that knocked me out.  

Wednesday was mercifully P-chem free, but we did have a three hour professionalism seminar, which, although I understood the need for, probably could have been condensed to a "do's and don'ts" handout. The things that I managed to take away included the idea that what we do as individual vets reflects on the profession as a whole (ie. don't make us look bad or "besmirch" the profession) and 14% of vets will at some time develop a substance abuse problem.  Now maybe that's because we're in much more debt than almost any other field, yet we make less than almost every other profession, maybe it's because of the comparatively easy access we have to easily-abused drugs, but for some reason, that statistic didn't surprise me so much.  However, when our lecturer commented that, in our 100 person class, statistically speaking, 14 of us would struggle with drug addiction, that was tough for me.

Thursday passed in a haze of exhaustion that I barely remember, but it was blessedly also a fairly short day.  We had Molecular biology in the morning followed by histology lab in the afternoon.  I must say that electron micrography images are much harder for me to read than light microscope ones.  My group did a lot of guessing and describing.  For example, "I see several dark, circular structures inside a membrane...are they lysosomes?"  Our facilitator did not seem to mind that we could not identify everything and seemed more intent on helping us develop what he called a "sixth sense" for what we were looking at.  Frankly, I'd be content to focus on the five until I've seen enough to understand what I'm looking at before trying to get in touch with the images on some ultra-sensory level, but maybe that's just me and my tired frustration.

Friday, we had gross anatomy, which although long, I actually prefer on a Friday to a Monday.  We dissected the manus (paw), which turned out to be harder than I expected.  I think we did a good job though and I feel like we also got a little review of the thoracic limb which I appreciated because we start on the pelvic limb Monday.  One of the air conditioners is non-functional in the anatomy lab, which meant that we were all sweaty and hot for three hours and had to take a few water breaks.  It was far too hot to wear our lab coats, which meant, unfortunately, that I ended up with lots of fluid on my forearms.  Good thing they have stopped using formalin in favor of a less toxic and carcinogenic embalming fluid.  Not that it's psychologically any less gross.  We wrapped up our dog and cat at four and I came home totally starving, which I hear is common after anatomy.  I don't know what exactly causes it, but even though I still occasionally feel slightly queasy from certain scents or tactile sensations dissecting, the minute I leave the lab, I'm ravenous.

So I came home and had dinner at 5:30, then took a little nap, which went on a little longer than I had intended, so I missed the SCAVMA (student chapter of the American Veterinary Medical Association) first Friday social event at a bar in Worcester.  Oh well, I'll catch them next month.

I did go to the Equine club picnic on Saturday and met many local practitioners as well as doctors in the large animal hospital that we will not have as professors until our third or fourth year.  Along with a classmate, I talked to the professor of a fourth year exercise physiology class about potentially being the faculty sponsor of a sports medicine club, which she said she would be happy to do.  I'm a little concerned about the amount of work it takes to get a club started, but since this is a real interest of mine, I think I'd like to see it through.  There are several of us v '15's interested in sports medicine, so I'm hoping we can spread the work around and try to get the club off the ground this year.  I'll keep you all posted on how that's going in coming weeks.