Exciting News

The end of this last week was an eventful one! As usual, each week goes by so quickly, and now I can hardly believe the weekend is almost over!

Our class held elections for our class leaders on Friday, and my classmates nominated and elected me for Vice President! I am very honored to be recognized as a leader to represent my class! I have a lot of ideas to shape our new school and now I am in a position to implement some of them. I feel that the leadership our class elected has an excellent dynamic (just like our class). This is a four year position as well!

On Thursday, the final exam was held for the elective class I was taking (International Veterinary Medicine). Our grades were posted the next day and I passed the class with an 87 on the exam! Woo hoo! I will also be finishing another class this week with a final paper due tomorrow morning!

With all of the studying and time spent in class it's pretty difficult to get a chance to go out and see the scenery, but I have had the chance to sneak off into Logan Canyon and check out the fall colors. The leaves started changing about two or three weeks ago in the canyon and have started changing here in the valley within the last week and a half. The brilliant colors are very stunning!

(Tony Grove in Logan Canyon, UT)

This week will mostly be preparation for the next round of midterms. About half of my classes have a few tests and quizzes throughout the semester, but a few (like the ones I mentioned above) ride on only one exam at the end of the course. One other class that is formatted this way is my Principles of Surgery class. Before starting our Junior year of instruction, we have to pass an examination that proves that we are competent at skills essential to surgery. In order to better prepare us for this test, we take this Principles of Surgery course our first semester of freshman year. At the end of the course we are given two hours to complete a list of tasks (i.e. different suture patters, tying knots, scrubbing, gloving and gowning, correctly identifying surgical instruments and properly performing a variety of sterile techniques). We must perfectly pass the test in order to pass the class. If for any reason we fail the test, we are given a second chance next fall to try to pass the test again before moving up to WA. It has been a lot of fun practicing applicable techniques! I am gaining a lot of confidence in my surgical capabilities each time I practice!

(practice cruciate sutures on my suture block by yours truly)

(All sterile after scrubbing and sterile gloving and gowning)

Hope all is well with everyone! Cheers from UT!

xoxo

C

Six Weeks In

Hi family and friends! I've decided to start a blog about my adventures during veterinary school. It has been difficult to keep up with everyone since school started this August. And as I'm sure you know, my relationships are very important to me. So I'm trying out this whole blog thing out to try to keep everyone in the loop!

I am alive! It has been quite a transition even from graduate school into veterinary school! I am thinking I should start more towards the beginning of this adventure...

I was invited to attend Utah State University's (USU) inaugural class for the new School of Veterinary Medicine (SVM) in conjunction with Washington State University's (WSU) College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM). My first two years of school start out in Logan, UT about an hour and a half northeast of Salt Lake City, UT. My second two years of school will be in Pullman, WA. My degree (Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine or DVM) will be from WSU. This so far has been quite the adventure. Sometimes, I really do feel like the guinea pig because there are still glitches that need to be worked out. A handful of our courses are being taught via distance education. With all this new technology, we can sit in on classes (using webcams and microphones) that are occurring hundreds of miles away up at WSU and vice versa. Buuuuut that's definitely been one of the guinea pig situations. Though the staff is working as hard as they can to get the technology to work, we have missed out on a few lectures and media. I'm still pretty impressed that we now have the capability to do this though! We even have club meetings with WSU.

My class load is pretty heavy. I am taking Physiology, Histology, Anatomy, Ag Animal Handling, Principles of Surgery, Animals Veterinarians and Society and International Veterinary Medicine (elective). Classes are M-F with lecture/lab from 8am-12:30 or 2 pm then lab out at the university farm from 2:30-4:30 or 6. Then of course I have to study after I get out of class. Each course goes through about a semester's worth of material in about a week, so it has been quite the learning curve to adjust to the pace. But it has been exciting to start learning the clinical relevance of the material we learn every day. For example, during anatomy, we also have palpation labs where we learn bony prominences and important anatomical landmarks for practice on live animals (most palpations have been on dogs, cats and horses)! A lot of this first year focuses on what is or should be 'normal' in large and small animal species

One of the perks to coming to school here at USU is because this class has just started out, there are only 30 individuals. 20 of my classmates are residents of UT. Me and the remaining nine are attending as nonresidents. Five of us are from the state of NV! So I was fortunate enough to start already knowing a handful of my fellow classmates, two of whom I arranged to live with. Together we are renting a house in Hyrum--one of the farm towns just south of Logan. We have a nice 4 bedroom house on the end of a dead end to the block with a large backyard, and plenty of space for the animals we brought along. One of my roommates and really close friends, Ryann, brought along her dog, Seth. He is a brown-spotted Dalmation and is Burton's best friend! And of course I brought Burton and Roxy along for the ride as well!

Currently I am studying for the second round of midterms coming up at the very end of October. I will get a full week off from class to celebrate Thanksgiving, then return for only a few weeks and then it will be finals time. It's been very hard to believe how quickly the time goes. Unfortunately, I always feel behind, and that kind of stress is difficult. A lot of recent research has shown the benefit of having counselors for veterinary students throughout school. So I have taken advantage of the psychologist provided just for the veterinary students. He has been a great person to talk to to work through the emotions and stresses of this type of profession.

I could talk forever and ever about how much I'm learning, how much fun I'm having and how stressed out I am, but I don't have time and this entry is already longer than I really wanted it to be, so I'll leave you all with that. Please don't hesitate to call, text or email. I likely won't be able to respond immediately, but it means so much to know I have support. I will try to update this frequently!

Lots of love! xoxoxox
C