Good News!

I passed my midterms! The best part is that I met my goal of bringing up my Multi-Disciplinary Center grade (which includes Anatomy, Histology, Parisitology, Radiology and Pathology).

The picture is of everyone in my class that went to symposium.

Jack Hanna and the SAVMA Symposium

For Spring Break I went to the SAVMA (Student American Veterinary Medical Association) Symposium which was held this year at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine. It was a great experience. Each day of the symposium I attended lectures from 10am-5pm. Some of the lectures that I went to include: Aquatic Animal Medicine; Cardiac Ascultation; GI Motility Disorders; Fluid Analysis; Kidney Disease; How to do a Great Neurologic Exam; Drugs in Small Animal Neonates and Emerging Animal Diseases and their Impact on Human Health. A few of the lectures were even given by the veterinarians who wrote my textbooks.
While I was very busy attending lectures, meeting and learning about the different veterinary sponsors and competing in academic competitions I also found some free time to visit the Mall of America and visit downtown Minneapolis. On the last night of Symposium, I got to hear the keynote speaker Jack Hanna speak and also work with exotic animals.
One of my motivations for attending symposium was to see what all of the other veterinary schools are teaching and where I am in comparison (because Western University is the only vet school in the U.S that has a totally Problem Based Learning Curriculum). Competing in the Anatomy challenge along with talking to a lot of other veterinary students made me more confident in Western University's teaching style. I felt that I knew just as much or even more then first year students in other veterinary programs. I am not saying that one program or school is better then others, but rather that each school is different and has its own strengths and weaknesses.
I flew back to California yesterday afternoon and have not had time to unpack or anything before starting the last block of my first year of veterinary school. This morning at 8am I had a microchipping lecture followed by my first PBL session with my new group (our groups change every 8 weeks) and then I had a clinical skills rotation where I got to microchip a cat.
Our first case this block is a porcine (pig) that aborted. Only 8 cases and 9 more weeks left until I am done with my first year of veterinary school!
The picture above is of me and other Western U students with Jack Hanna.

Exhausted

Tomorrow morning I have my Molecular and Cellular Bio exam followed by the IVPACT. Then tomorrow night we have a take home assignment that gets turned in on Friday morning before the second half of the IVPACT exam and then I am OFF (kind of) for a whole week.
I have never studied so hard in my life and felt so disappointed with exams. I feel (along with the majority of my class) that the written exam (aka testing in all of the major "ologies") on Tuesday did not actually test us on what we have have studied this semester. We had about 20 questions on avian anatomy, immunology and reproduction when we only had a 2 day chicken case at the end of the semester, whereas urogenital physiology in other species was a huge topic and was not asked as much or in as much detail! The whole exam was such a disappointment because it did not test us on what we learned this semester but rather in areas that we haven't gone into detail yet. Another thing that was frustrating with the exam was that it asked so many detailed questions in immunology, however, the cases that we were presented with led us to believe that we should approach immunology from more of a microbiology or virology point of view and not in the the specific molecular details of heavy chains etc. I wrote my Masters Thesis in Canine Lymphosarcoma, which is based on immunology and I couldn't answer many of the questions asked on this exam so I don't understand how the professors expected most of the people in my class who have limited immunology experience (usually only one class in undergrad) to be able to answer the questions.
Everyone at school is completely burnt out. After our Anatomy, Histology, Radiology, Pathology and Parisitology Practical Exam today everyone just crashed. I am too overtired to sleep and too exhausted and frustrated to study for my MCB test tomorrow. I am even too tired to pack for spring break.
Even though I am excited to be going to Miami and Minnesota for the SCAVMA conference, I wish that I had a few extra days to reorganize before leaving and starting classes again. I am leaving straight from my IVPACT on Friday morning and I do not get back until the following Sunday evening and classes begin on 8am Monday morning. I have not had the chance to do laundrey, clean, check my personal email or even talk to my friends from home in weeks because of all of the studying that I have been doing. I really hope all of this hard work pays off and I am a good doctor.
The picture above is of the hike that I do a couple of times during the week.