Scream. Pause. Jump.

Merry Kroeger, Texas A&M University

Life as a Vet Student, Entry

Over the course of my last 2 years, I have made some fond memories in veterinary school. During my second semester as a first year student, I had to take 6 hours of large animal anatomy. We were put into groups of 6 to 7 per cadaver horse for lab. One of my newest friends, Ashley, was put in my lab group. All semester we had a blast dissecting our horse. On one occasion, I had wandered over to look at some radiographs on the wall of the equine limb, and Ashley came up behind and scared me. It surprised me so much I screamed, and then jumped. I think a majority of the lab heard my racket because when I turned around to see who had scared me, not only was Ashley there laughing, but half the lab was looking my way. They were probably wondering why I had screamed and why Ashley was laughing. I have never be so scared out of my wits like I had that day. And to this day, Ashley still teases me about the pause between when I screamed and when I jumped, because in her head, she cannot understand why a person would jump AFTER they screamed, instead of screaming and jumping at the same time! I guess I am a bit unusual.

A fond memory during first year was Hawaiian Friday. One of our microbiology professors had a routine of dressing every Friday in a Hawaiian shirt, shorts and sandals. Not kidding. And so, one of my classmates had the clever idea of emailing the entire class and coordinating a Friday in which we would wear Hawaiian shirts in spirit of Dr. Musser's Hawaiian Friday. This resulted in about 20-30 students showing up for Friday classes in Hawaiian shirts and making Dr. Musser gleefully excited. Our class historian recruited some of the students to stay after class and pose for a picture with Dr. Musser as a capturing memory of a fun day.

During second year, my roommate, Jenni, and I were lab partners in our parasitology lab. I had dreaded this course because of my dislike for bugs, especially worms. But much to my surprise, the class was going very well and I found I was thoroughly enjoying it. Until I met Ascaris and Tabanus. Then my world turned upside down. Ascaris is the genus name for Roundworms, and Tabanus is the genus name for Horse fly. Why did these two bugs scare me? Because they were HUGE and UGLY! I couldn't even bring myself to grab the forceps and pull these bugs out of their preservative jar. I knew they were dead, and they couldn't hurt me. By golly even if they were alive they couldn't hurt me! Nevertheless, I could not bear it trying to look at them outside the preservative jar. As I am trying to timidly evaluate and study the roundworm and the horse fly on my dissection microscope, I glance over and see Jenni laughing so hard as she watches me deal with these bugs. You see, Jenni loves bugs. She is not afraid at all to pick them up, move them around with her forceps, and look at their features (dead or alive) on her dissection microscope. I on the other hand, preferr to leave the bugs in their jars and stare at them through the glass. Jenni jokes that when I  become a veterinarian, and I am out in the field looking at a horse with horse flies, or in a clinic looking at a puppy with roundworms, I will be asking my technician to pull off the bugs because I am sure the technician would like something to do (when in reality there is no way I am going to touch that worm or fly myself!) To this day, whenever Jenni meets a first year student, one of the funny things she tells them is how her roommate disliked handling dead roundworms and horse flies. She laughs every time she tells the story.

About half way through my first semester of second year, my roommate and I had a brilliant idea: we would write every single classmate an encouragement card to put in their mailboxes the week before finals. We split the DVM class in half and we each wrote about 66 personalized cards. Each card was one of 8 different colors, and it included something the classmate did well, or an encouragement note to not give up but to keep going and do their best. Scripture accompanied every card to either highlight the good character quality of the classmate or to encourage them. Writing the cards was so time consuming! But, the day came when we gathered the cards together and alphabetized them. We stuck them in each classmate's mailbox. And then saw the fruit of our labor. All week, it was a buzz hearing classmates talking about the anomalously written notes and how much they loved getting them. Messages on facebook and emails sent to the class, thanking the person who was responsible for the notes. I found how rewarding it was to put in so much work and effort to cheer someone. And to see how much they appreciated getting the encouragement. It is a reminder to me how much people long and need to hear encouraging, wise words. And, how powerful words can be to a person. Words can bring a soul down. Or, they can elevate a soul above the clouds. I think these cards brought the souls of my classmates above the clouds that week as we entered finals. Thankful everyday for my DVM class.