A Chance to Touch the Sky

Laura Byers, Ross University

Creative Corner, Winner

A little girl’s dreams are magical things,

And if she’s lucky, they can give her wings.

 A dream, a chance to touch the sky,

Horse as her guide, she learned how to fly.

Whether elegant strides, or difficult rides,

Jumps and falls that made her cry,

Fears were taught be pushed aside,

Because dreams can’t live until you try.

It’s amazing what a horse can provide,

Strength, love, and humbled pride

Responsibility, self-esteem,

All because a little girl followed her dream.

A dream, a chance to touch the sky,

Horse as her guide, she learned how to fly.

2014 SAVMA Symposium Experience

Tara Farrell, Ross University

Experiences, Honorable Mention

I didn’t quite know what to expect when I arrived in Colorado for the SAVMA Symposium.  Coming from a tropical island, I was immediately met with freezing weather.  This was a nice change from the hot, humid weather I had been in the last couple of months. I also did not know what to expect from people and the atmosphere at the conference since I had never been to one before.

From the very beginning of the symposium, it was busy.  My friends and I started off with the volleyball tournament at the CSU recreational center. This was a lot of fun and we met some very nice people from Wisconsin and other schools. Since the lectures didn’t start until Friday, I was able to explore Fort Collins with some friends and take a tour of The New Belgium Brewery.  Thursday night I explored the nightlife of Old Town Fort Collins by going on a pub-crawl.  My friends and I were able to eat some actual American bar food and have some delicious beer after being in the Caribbean for 3 months. Later that night, my group of friends met up and hung out with some of the people that we had met at the volleyball tournament earlier in the day.

Friday morning was another busy day from the beginning. I had my Small Animal Medical Procedures wet lab, which was an awesome experience. I learned techniques like urine catheterization, bone marrow aspirations and other procedures that I had not yet learned at Ross.  Later in the day I was able to attend some of the lectures and meet up with one of my friends who is a veterinary student at CSU.  We also saw and met up with some of the people we had done our Master’s program with at CSU.  That night, the symposium took us into Fort Collins for a Casino Royale Night.  This was a great opportunity to meet and mingle with people from other schools.  Coming from the Caribbean we had our own unique way of meeting people, which was by hula hooping. It was fun because people from other schools would come up and try to hoop and the few people from Ross who were good at it put on a little show. Casino Night was very fun, even though I did not gamble, but I did enjoy meeting people and hanging out with my friends.Volleyball at the Rec Center

On Saturday morning, my friends and I were met with a surprise outside when we woke up. It was snowing! This was fun to see, since we don’t have any seasons in the Caribbean and I hardly get to see snow at home because I live in Arizona.  I was also able to finally relax a little and attend some of the lectures in the morning.  Later that morning I met up with my sister, who had driven up from Denver. It was great to hang out with her and explore Fort Collins a little more in the snow! That night was the closing ceremonies, so we put on our best dress and got ready to have a great time.  The dinner was delicious and the speakers were all very good. The keynote speaker was Dr. Stephen Withrow, who gave a very good and inspiring speech.  He told us about his journey and how he was able to open the Cancer Center at the Colorado State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital.  He showed us how we can open doors in veterinary medicine that might lead to advances in human medicine.   This is important because the human-animal bond is even stronger these days.  

This whole experience has made me want to be a veterinarian even more and has made me more excited to be apart of the veterinary medical field. I think that any veterinary student who has a chance to attend the SAVMA Symposium should attend.  It is a great opportunity to learn more about the different fields of medicine and learn different types of medical procedures and skills.  This was also a great place to network with other students and lecturers. I would not trade this experience for anything in the world even if I did end up missing a test. I was able to grow more as a veterinary student and am more excited than ever about being apart of the veterinary profession. 

The Invisible Hook

Sally Moseley, St. Matthew's University

Life as A Vet Student, Honorable Mention

Throughout any given day, between classes, on an isle in the grocery store, walking down to the end of an apartment complex, there are multiple occasions to indulge in apparently meaningless conversations.  Many of us take great advantage of these opportunities to have meaningless conversations for the greater part of our free-time.  This is a wonderful way to discover that meaningless conversations are really only ever seemingly meaningless. 

Sometimes it is the people, sometimes it is the words, and sometimes it is the effect those words have on us even years after they are spoken.  Whatever the reason, when we engage in others, we learn a little bit more about ourselves as human beings. 

Being a vet student, as many of us might have noticed, involves large amounts of time dedicated to academics.  Many times, the aforementioned “free-time” becomes time to get more experience at a clinic, with the ultrasound machine, or with suture materials.  Yet we are willing to do it all and exhaust our major resources: time and energy.  We have dreams, and we love what we do.

Every once in a while, though, we need to have a really good meaningless conversation.

This spring semester, I can recall a single moment captured in a meaningless conversation that will probably stick with me for quite some time.  A friend of mine, who managed to lose technological means of morning arousal, asked if I could wake him up before classes.  Except he did not just want to wake up before classes; he wanted to wake up at the time I got up around 5:00 am, hours before class began.  This coming from someone who had nearly accomplished the conversion into becoming completely nocturnal.

So I laughed.  I made fun of him.  He made fun of himself.  It was a joke, and there was no real point in anything we were saying.

It happened right after he said it was just something he “needed” to do.  I did not really think he “needed” to do anything.  That was until he said, yes, he did, “by the same desire that drives anyone to need to do anything, otherwise we wouldn’t have to do shit”. 

With a mixture of the person speaking, the words he spoke, and the effect those words are sure to have on me in the years to come, I realized what all of us were doing.  We can probably all say that, when it comes right down to it, we do not “need” to cut down on an hour of sleep each night to fit in that little bit of anatomy review before doing clinical rotations.  Maybe we do not “need” to spend lunch with a pile of notecards.

But, sometimes you might be nocturnal with a desire to change yourself.  And sometimes we want to become something that means we must sacrifice those things that do not arouse the same desire.  And sometimes we need a meaningless conversation to remind us that, for whatever reason, we are doing what we are driven to do because it is what we love the most.

Martyrdom, Conjuring, Diablo Triptych

Shanna Nelson, University of Missouri

Creative Corner, Winner

Reese for Real

Julia Hill, University of Georgia

Creative Corner, Winner