Introducing Your SAVMA Executive Board: Joe Esch, President

In honor of the American Veterinary Medical Association convention to be held in St. Louis officially beginning today and the SAVMA House of Delegates meetings that will accompany it, here is an introduction to YOUR SAVMA Executive Board, position by position.  First of all- your President, Joe Esch:

Name, Position on EB:  Joe Esch, SAVMA President

School and Year:  The Ohio State University, 2012

Your area of interest within veterinary medicine:  Small Animal General Practice

Description of what your office entails: The SAVMA President represents all SAVMA veterinary students and presides at all meetings of the SAVMA House of Delegates and Executive Board meetings.  The president also represents SAVMA in the AVMA House of Delegates and as a non-voting member of the AVMA Executive Board. 

Your favorite thing about holding that office:  I really enjoy being able to advocate for veterinary students on the national level.

Something exciting that your office is doing/has done for vet students this past year: Something really exciting for me is the changes that we are trying to make with regards to communication.  It is my hope that we can increase communication about what SAVMA and SCAVMA is and the benefits to being a SCAVMA member.

Your favorite SCAVMA related experience thus far: SAVMA Symposium is by far my favorite SAVMA related experience, and they all have been excellent!

Something fun about yourself:  I have an 11 year old smooth collie.

Konza Prairie

By Stephanie Macinski

Kansas State University

Ureteritis

By Krista Morrow
Washington State University
Class of 2013

                As freshman students, we learned a game in pathology lab to practice correctly describing inflammation of certain organs. For example, if the spleen in an animal has signs of inflammation, you would refer to this as splenitis. To play the game, we went around in a circle in front of 25 or so peers, and one at a time named an organ for the next person to label. Some of us were more devious than others and thought up crafty ways to stump our classmates. They named obscure anatomies of the eyeball or other such parts that anatomy class didn’t even cover, sure enough causing profuse stammering and blotchy red faces.  Luckily I was given easier organs to describe.  

                However, I had to leave the lab every 15-20 minutes in the middle of a practically rib-breaking coughing fit (leftover from a nasty, long lasting virus all my classmates had that year-what we lovingly remember as the Plague of the Class of 2013). The game had ended by the time I had finished coughing up a lung, and the professor was asking us if we had any questions about organs we might have missed. Of course there would be a test!

                I’m usually a pretty quiet person, and especially as an awkward first year student didn’t typically enjoy asking questions in front of my classmates. However, I was drugged on cough syrup, Dayquil and had eaten more than the suggested dose of cough drops in one day than a person should consume in a week. I suppose I was in a drunkenly brave state of mind. “What would you call inflammation of the ureter?” I asked. Immediately I could feel some weird glances, and my teacher had paused and was kind of quizzingly staring at me. “Well, if you hadn’t have been in the bathroom, you would have known the answer to that question!” a classmate joked with me, and the rest giggled at their perceived irony of the situation. (I didn’t have to leave for the bathroom 4 times, I really was just coughing!) So apparently ureteritis had been asked about already.  Moral of the story-you don’t die from asking silly questions, but it would behoove one to stay quiet on days when one is drugged up on cough syrup!

Health and Fitness- Vending Machines

By Madison McGee

Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine

I do not have much time to exercise as a vet student and an anesthesia technician so I try to

watch what I eat. This is not always easy since my schedule changes minute to minute some

days and I never know when I will get to eat. Vending machines only have chips and candy bars,

which are not only unhealthy but also expensive. Therefore, I bring my own “vending machine”

every day. I have a small lunch bag with an ice pack, a cheese stick, a squeeze fruit packet, a

fruit snack, craisins, granola bar, and lunch (sandwich, leftovers, etc.). The cheese sticks come

in a variety of kinds likes mozzerella and colby jack. Buddy Fruit and Dole make 100% fruit

squeeze fruit packets that are great on the go, come in lots of flavors, and are a good alternative

during the winter when good fresh fruit is hard to find. Buddy fruit also makes 100% fruit snacks

and one pack counts as a single serving of fruit, plus they taste great. Craisins are like raisins, but

made from cranberries with a little more moisture for those who think raisins are dry. The typical

granola bar (not coated in chocolate) is another great option on the go that is filling enough to get

you by till dinner and allows you to pass the vending machines.

Creative Corner

By Chelsea Mason

Virginia- Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine

This photo represents "Where would you be if you weren't in class"