Making the best of your free time

Entry, Experiences
Joshua Yoo, Ohio State

"Take full advantage of your free time," is some of the best advice I have received in recent years from a respected mentor last spring.  While it seems trivial at first, it reminds me to live life to the fullest while also maintaining a sense of balance.  I'll never forgot the first day of class, we had a lecture on erythropoiesis and thinking that it was going to be a long semester.  Oddly enough, before I could blink, finals were around the corner.  While finals sometimes seemed to drag on, our class persevered with purpose and were delighted when break came.

 

I returned to Los Angeles to visit my family and catch up with old friends which was terrific.  I also took a fun short road trip to catch up with colleagues and mentors.  Sure, we keep in touch with people through email, phone, text, and etc, but nothing can replace a face to face meeting.  It was comforting to share stories with current and past veterinary students as we have all experienced many of the same joys and challenges of veterinary school.

 

Cleft PalateI was fortunate to schedule an externship at a southern California referral hospital which quite frankly, blew my socks off.  This was my first externship as a veterinary student and I really enjoyed the camaraderie, education, and support that the specialists, interns, and technicians gave me.  Working with interns who were recently in my shoes gave me a tangible idea of what to expect when I pursue internship.  Words can't describe how much I learned and enjoyed accompanying surgeons and interns on consults and then watching surgery being performed.  I saw a number of orthopedic and soft tissues surgeries but will especially remember watching a 7 pound gastric foreign body removal, laparoscopic gastropexy, and a secondary cleft palate repair.  I will definitely apply to the rotating internship at this hospital in my 4th year and look forward to other visiting other externships down the road.

 

I'm really thankful and glad for my externship as nothing can replace the clinical education.  In additionSeven pound gastric foreign body! to that, being able to experience the culture of the hospital through externship is something that can only be done face to face.  That said, I also caught up on Dexter and Homeland over break, so I'd say my break was a success. 

  

Always remember to stop and smell the flowers

Entry, Creative Corner
Rachel Wawrzyn, University of Wisconsin 

A Study in Apathy

Entry, Foot in Mouth Disease
Michelle Covington, Mississippi State

Pastel Colors

Entry, Creative Corner
Alicia Bays, Virginia-Maryland Regional

 

African Conservation Experience

Entry, Experiences
Julia Kochan, Ross University

This certainly was an experience – a veterinary experience? Questionable. Although I went into this trip expecting “the unexpected,” knowing full well that you cannot create medical emergencies out of thin air, I did not expect the extreme excess of down-time that we experienced through ACE. Most of our time was spent doing game capture, which was fun for maybe the first 2 hours. Overall though, we probably spent a majority of our time running curtains across a “boma” – or in lay terms, a device created to “funnel” wild antelopes into a truck. Again, seeing the animals was fun and exciting, but that wore off after about 2 or 3 hours. The veterinarian that was in charge of our trip allegedly “dropped” us, and we were left in the hands of Boondocks, the animal capture and relocation company. Countless hours were spend napping in a lodge with no electricity, and no access to anything outside of the game reserve.  I think in lieu of our expected cancellation from the veterinarian that ACE could have stepped up to the plate and taken us around to do some sightseeing or visit some local parks – we are in Africa after all.

 

After spending over $5000 US, we did deserve some activity other than playing cards in a lodge.  However, I can’t completely bash this trip, because we did do a few veterinary-related procedures.  An injured lioness was treated, under the supervision of another veterinarian with a group of Ross students, which we soon became envious of.  There was another time we tagged along with that group of students to dart and move some sable and perform an arthrotomy on a Rhino. We did some individual translocation of some large antelope on our own, and we found some time to perform necropsies on two springbok.  So the whole trip wasn’t a complete waste, we did have a few isolated veterinary experiences. However, Boondocks treated us like children, did not allow us to casually drink or do anything social, and talked down to us as if we were “beneath them” and not there to participate in a work experience that we had paid for.  I would not recommend this company to Ross students looking for a veterinary experience. Wildlife Vets and another smaller veterinary group had much more veterinary experiences, were treated well, and left wanting to go back. Unfortunately, I left with no intention of returning to Africa, which was very disappointing.