Life as a Vet Student- your Vet School "family"

By Erica Burkland

 Cornell University

On May 9, 2011, with only one week and a rigorous two-day final exam remaining in my first year of vet school, I watched my beloved gelding sustain a catastrophic femoral fracture. One minute Calypso was cantering from one end of the paddock to the other as the sun began to set on the crisp spring evening, and the next he was laterally recumbent in the grass. The moment I saw his left hind leg crumble from beneath him midstride, before his 1450-pound body had even finished hitting the ground, I knew he would never get up again. I knew I would have to say goodbye to my best friend before the sun finished setting.        

The hour between that gut-wrenching moment and Calypso drawing his last breath is a blur. After my veterinarian, the first person I called after Calypso went down was Kaylan, a friend and classmate of mine. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do this alone. She left her post in the library and rushed to the barn to be with me during Calypso’s final moments. By the time the veterinarian arrived, Calypso and I were surrounded by a small army of people, most of whom I knew barely or not at all. It didn’t take long for my veterinarian to determine that Calypso’s left femur was fractured beyond repair. Kaylan knelt beside me in the dirt at Calypso’s head as he was euthanized; just as quickly as he had collapsed less than an hour earlier, he was gone for good. Distraught, I said my final goodbyes and left with Kaylan, clutching Calypso’s muddy halter to my chest. By then the sun was long gone behind the horizon. 

In the wake of such an unexpected and profound loss, I could hardly begin to imagine how I would make it through final exams. Fortunately by that time in the school year, my circle of close friends had been firmly established, and it was this makeshift family that pulled me through the unbearably painful weeks that followed. The night Calypso was euthanized, they flocked to my apartment and sat with me as I sobbed through phone calls to all the people who knew and loved Calypso as I did – my parents, the girls back at home that I grew up riding with, and my trainer of fifteen years. Despite having 8am class the next day, my friends stayed until the early hours of the morning, until there was nothing left for me to do but attempt to sleep. Although most of them had only met Calypso once or twice, they knew how much I loved him and what a huge part of my life he had been. They knew that I had made time to see him every single day during my first year of vet school, even on days when there was a foot of snow on the ground and nights when I didn’t leave campus until 11pm. They knew that I had been juggling two part-time jobs on top of vet school so that I could afford to keep him on a student’s budget. They knew that I had often missed out on extracurricular and social activities during our first year because Calypso was always my first priority. They knew, perhaps better than I did initially, that losing him would be harder than anything I had experienced before.

During the first week after losing Calypso, my vet school family surrounded me with love and support, making themselves available at all hours of the day and night despite being in the throes of finals week. When all I wanted to do was lay in bed, they took me out to lunch to drink margaritas and celebrate my once-in-a-lifetime horse. When all the “studying” I could manage on my own consisted of staring blankly at my computer screen scrolling through seven years’ worth of photos of my life with Calypso, they helped me prepare for our final by laboriously reviewing material out loud as a group. When I couldn’t sleep, they took me on late night drives to the banks of Cayuga Lake, where we sat on swings beneath the moonlight and they held me as I cried. When I repeatedly second-guessed my decision to put Calypso down, they assured me that I had made the kindest, most selfless choice I could have. When I wanted to give up, they promised me that it would get better with time and that they would be there with me every step of the way. 

Now I’m beginning my second year of vet school, and Calypso has been gone for almost four months. Although life without him has gotten easier, I still miss him every day. My friends recently surprised me with a bracelet that they had custom made from a lock of Calypso’s tail; I’ve worn it every day since. Not only do I find peace in always having a part of him with me, but it also serves as a reminder of how fortunate I am to have found an incredible new family that will always be there for me.    

Summer Experiences

In the spirit of the holiday season- enjoy a wonderful piece about the importance of taking time for the non veterinary related things in life!

By Chelsea Mason

Virginia Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine

This summer was one of the most exciting and memorable of my life.  I spent most of it travelling with my boyfriend and expanding my cultural horizons.  He is leaving for a seven month deployment in September, and it was our goal to do as many fun and interesting things as possible before he leaves.  We went to countless vineyards, farmers markets, fairs, and festivals.  We went blueberry and blackberry picking, tried some new restaurants, and even made up a few interesting recipes of our own.  Though we had a blast doing everything we could in our area, the most memorable experiences were the road-trips that we took.  In June, we drove to New York to fulfill my lifelong dream of seeing “Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway.  It was incredible! Before the show, we toured the whole city. We went to Times Square, Central Park, and even had lunch on the roof of the Met.  At the show, we felt almost like celebrities; dressed to impress and sitting in the front row.  Afterward, we went to a swank rooftop bar, and someone actually asked me “who are you wearing?”  It was an amazing experience that I will always remember.

Our next adventure took us to Asheville, North Carolina.  Asheville is high on my list of places to move after graduation, so I wanted to go get a feel for the area.  We got to experience Asheville’s culture by taking a walking food tour of the downtown area. What better way is there to learn about a city than walking around and eating?  The main purpose of the visit, however, was to visit a successful veterinary hospital in the area.  The doctors and staff that I visited with were very welcoming and accommodating.  I toured the clinic, went in an exam room, and observed an ultrasound.  They are a teaching hospital, so the doctor performing the ultrasound quizzed me on anatomy the entire time. Thankfully, I remembered a lot more than I thought I would.  I was very impressed with the hospital as a whole, and definitely found a place that I would like to do a clerkship my fourth year.

Our last road-trip took us to Washington, D.C. to see “Wicked” at the Kennedy Center.  That was quite the trip, to say the least.  What should have been a three hour drive took five because we were in bumper-to-bumper traffic the whole way.  We planned to have a picnic dinner by the reflecting pool once we arrived. Unfortunately, no one told us that the reflecting pool was under construction and was nothing but a large stretch of dirt.  We survived the 100 degree temperature long enough to see the Lincoln Memorial, then had to go to the theater drenched in sweat.  To most people, that probably sounds like a terrible day, but when we finally parked at the theater we just looked at each other and laughed hysterically.  The show was incredible, the best of any that we have seen so far. And luckily, the trip home was completely uneventful.

Though some might argue that I should have spent this summer doing more veterinary-related things, I wouldn’t trade the wonderful experiences that I had for anything.  I have the rest of my life to be a veterinarian and experience all there is to experience in that field.   So I chose to spend my summer exploring with my best friend, opening my eyes to the world around me, and making memories that will last a lifetime.  I have no regrets, and I would encourage all of my peers to do the same.

Foot in Mouth

By Laura Stoeker

North Carolina State University

As a newly minted second year veterinary student and a recent hire as a technician at a local small animal clinic, I was hoping to pick up some hands-on veterinary skills on the weekends and some much needed cash. What is cash, you may ask? I often wonder myself since vet students don’t come in contact with it very often. That is an aside, however. On this Saturday in June I walked into the exam room and was greeted by a friendly middle-aged woman and her not-so-friendly elderly cat. Mary the cat had not been doing so well at home. She was an 18 year-old domestic short hair, thin, and ornery. At home, the owner complained that Mary would sometimes seem dizzy or disoriented. When placed on the clinic floor, Mary began circling. The circling was followed by wandering into a corner in the clinic and staying there.  18 year-old cat, circling, wandering into corners and staying there? I was pretty convinced that Mary had a brain tumor and was showing neurological symptoms.  After all, how many video clips of circling animals do first year veterinary students get to watch during neurology lectures? 5….10….20? Enough to recognize it when they see it, in any case!

                I gave a history to the veterinarian on call and mentioned my thoughts on the neurological symptoms. We entered the exam room and she proceeded with a head to tail physical examination. In the first few seconds of the exam, she had determined that Mary had no menace response and was incapable of tracking with her eyes. In fact, she determined that Mary was…..blind. Fortunately, the blindness was likely reversible as it was secondary to high blood pressure. But my chagrin was not reversible. Yes, I suppose that blindness could be another reason for a cat walking into a wall and wandering around in circles. I was short-sighted with my diagnosis, and my lesson for the day was a simple but important one: never turn a blind eye to alternative differentials.

Pfizer Summer Externship

By Valerie Koenig

Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

Pfizer Summer Externship – Wisconsin

            As someone who grew up in suburban Massachusetts, I never thought that I would get the opportunity to do much with cows. But between my undergraduate experience and my employment on a local dairy farm, I have spent a lot of time getting to know, handling, and working with lots of cows. This summer, I got the opportunity to go on a one-month externship through Pfizer Animal Health to a town north of Madison, Wisconsin. It was a four-veterinarian, all dairy cattle medicine practice, two male vets and two female vets. Not only was it great to get different perspectives on food animal veterinary medicine from the men versus the women, but it was also great to get the advice and expertise of the newer versus the not-so-new graduates. The bulk of what we did was the usual weekly, or biweekly, ‘programs’ (i.e. herd checks) at each of the various client farms, but there was so much more than that. Lucky for me, they ended up being quite busy in the weeks I was there so I was fortunate enough to see a variety of different things and get hands-on experience. I got to help with many DA surgeries, I got plenty of practice pulling calves when called out for dystocia problems, I palpated hundreds of cows and really got a good base for that skill, my calf blood sampling skills improved dramatically, I got to help with a few uterine prolapses and cecal torsion surgeries, and I treated many cows for milk fever, ketosis, and acute toxic mastitis.

            Overall, this was an incredibly valuable experience for me, both as a future veterinarian and as an employee of a farm. Also, it was great to experience another region of dairies other than New England. Not that dairy farming is that much different from region to region, but there are many more farms out in the Midwest, comparatively to New England, and the infrastructure present to support that many farms is much more developed and significant. Having worked at a few farms before, my experience was mainly limited to milking, handling, and a minor amount of medical care. On this externship, my medical skills were greatly improved and for that reason alone, this externship was invaluable. Going into this externship I was already considering being a dairy practitioner and this experience did nothing but to further that desire. Though at times it can be frustrating and tiring, I love the way it integrates medicine with agriculture, improving production, and the food industry. This externship was a great opportunity and I was very glad I was able to do it.

Cases and Abstracts- see what fellow vet students are working on!

By Keiko Petrosky

Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

ABSTRACT: EVALUATING GRADING SYSTEMS FOR ACCURATE PROGNOSIS OF CANINE CUTANEOUS MAST CELL TUMORS

Keiko Y. Petrosky and Barbara J. Davis

Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine (TCSVM)

Department of Biomedical Sciences, Section of Pathology

North Grafton, MA

Cutaneous mast cell tumors are common malignant tumors in dogs, composing 10% of all canine tumor diagnoses at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine (TCSVM), but commonly used histologic grading systems to assess MCT has limited application with respect to clinical outcome.  Recently, a 2-tiered grading system has been published to better guide prognosis.  Based on the newer criteria, we reclassified MCT with respect to outcome in (n = 402) TCSVM cases over 8 years and in (n = 54) cases with 48-month follow-up.  The Student t-test or Mann-Whitney U test was used to determine the significance of association between outcome and histological grade.  Significance of association between survival times and histological grade was analyzed using Kaplan-Meier survival curves and appropriate Cox analysis.  Although median survival time correlated with the 3-tiered assessments, most tumors (82%) were classified as grade 2 with a wide distribution of survival times.  After reclassification of all tumors to either low- or high-grade, survival times remained significantly correlated with tumor grade, including those previously classified as grade 2.  Most (94%) of the patients diagnosed with grade 2 tumors reclassified as low-grade and reached the end of the four-year time point; however the survival time for patients diagnosed with grade 2 tumors reclassified as high-grade varied significantly.  We are now evaluating additional biomarkers as tools to predict clinical outcomes.  Preliminary studies show that the traditional proliferation markers AgNOR and Ki67 and aberrant localization of KIT may be useful in further describing these high grade tumors.

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