Vet school is rapidly coming to an end for me, as of writing this, I only have 101 days until I graduate!  2024 started quite early - in January we had two weeks of lectures in the subject "Professional Communication", which was aimed mostly at helping students prepared for their thesis defence, and a little about job interviews. Long time readers will know that I defended my thesis a year early, so the lectures weren't super useful to me. They were spaced out enough that I was able to go home for a few days which was nice, because there wasn't time during the horse block! Onto that - in ..read more

My last birthday during vet school! Rob flew out on Friday and left on Monday, and even though it was a short time, we still had a lovely weekend. Friday was a typical half-day, we watched part of Cruella (just couldn't bring ourselves to finish it!) and eating. This was the set up for the surgeries!     On Saturday, Nicole and I were up at 6:30am to go to a Romani village called Ostrovany to spay some dogs. A vet that graduated last year organised a spay campaign with a local shelter, who captured the dogs for us. There were 3 vets doing the surgeries, and 11 students helpi ..read more

Everybody says "spaying and neutering aren't day one competencies", however, I do like to be prepared - so I booked a week at a spay and neuter clinic in Spain. The clinic is run by a very nice man, Wayne, who retired to Spain 20 years ago. Not one to settle down, and concious of the many lost and stray animals around Spain, he set up the neuter clinic to help learning and newly graduated vets to improve their surgical skills. We also get to practice putting in catheters and intubating animals, which is a good skill to have too. This was another thing that I sorted out about a year ago, when I ..read more

Even though I know I get terribly homesick, I keep booking placements really far away from home. This time, I'm in the midlands.  My first day was a little slow - there were 3 inpatients, a chameleon, a ferret and a pigeon. The chameleon needed a partial tail amputation that took all of 5 minutes, the ferret had an ultrasound revealing a very advanced (likely) cancerous process, and was sent home on steroids. That was a particularly interesting ultrasound because he also had a very abnormal kidney - so abnormal that to begin with the vet thought it was the gallbladder. The pigeon is an ra ..read more

I had my first state exam today - Contagious Diseases. When I tell you I was dreading this, that does not even cover it.  I studied so much for this exam. I don't particularly like thinking about contagious diseases, as I'm a bit of a hypochondriac. I was doing minimum 6 hours a day reading, doing ankis, watching videos, talking about the diseases. Any possible way to study for this exam, I was doing it.  There are 39 questions about various bacterial, viral and parasitic diseases. Most of the questions are ok, diseases that I know about and don't mind. But there were a few ..read more

In my first year, I emailed my year tutor asking about our thesis. I had only been studying veterinary medicine for 2 months at the time of emailing him, but I already had a question I wanted to investigate. He emailed back, suggesting a supervisor for me. I didn't get a response until my second year, but my idea was accepted, and I began to work on my thesis.  I wanted to investigate if there was a link between the colour of a cats' fur and the incidence of Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disorders (FLUTD). This topic is of particular importance to me, as two of my cats have suffered from FLU ..read more

Millie was a ~6 month old kitten that I found at the university farm, on 24/03/2023. Here she is at the clinic, those black spots of her top lip are actually big scabs She had dirty ears and scabs on her face, but was so sweet and affectionate. I scooped her up and took her to the clinic, and then home.  I didn't have a carrier to bring her back in, so I used a tote bag - she soon escaped this but was happy to sit on my lap Millie had a ear yeast infection, secondary to an ear mite infestation - I was given some ear drops for her (Mitex) to give her 2x a day for 7 days ..read more

Going back to school as someone who took some years out of education was a big adjustment. I remember saying (any my parents love to remind me) "I never have to any exams ever again!" when I graduated the first time. It's been a big learning curve, and I do think it was softened by the pandemic - online learning in my own space was much more comfortable than being alone in a different country. That isn't to say that it was easy (it wasn't), but I did make some purchases that made the learning process easier. Technology purchases 1. iPad     This, unfortunately, was the best purc ..read more

Monday Monday is always a brutal day to start the week on - a 7:15 wake up for diagnostic pathology, immediately into diseases of poultry, and finishing the morning with internal diseases of small animals. These lectures are normally very interesting, but my brain doesn't turn on until much later in the day.  After a short lunch break, I head into uni for my poultry practical. It was a pretty rough one today (they normally are anyway, we do a necropsy of a chicken each week, and if you've smelt chickens and death, you can imagine how bad it smells). We were talking about embryo developmen ..read more

Wow, I really thought I'd written more! There have been so many trips so far this term. Lots of lab work too, which isn't my favourite, but it is interesting.  Basically everything this term is gearing us up for our Contagious Diseases state at the end of term. I'm a bit scared for it, but I got through Epizoo and it's basically the same thing. I'm more worried about the Food Hygiene state, because there's so much detail needed for every little part of food production.  I've pretty much finished my thesis, I'm waiting for confirmation from my supervisor that I can submit it, and t ..read more