Life as a Vet Student- Advice to the Class of 2015

By Maite Torres

Kansas State University

Class of 2014

After so many years of hard work I finally made it! Now I’m extremely proud to say that I’m a second year veterinary student at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University! EMAW!!

 My first year of vet school counts as the most amazing, stressful, exciting, overwhelming and surprising year of my life. The most memorable part of it actually happened before it started: the day I found out that I was admitted. As many of us do, I applied to multiple schools; however, being a veterinary technician for our Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, being in love with the school and its people, and being a resident of Kansas, all my energy was focused on staying here. To my surprise, God and the CVM had a very special birthday present for me: “You’ve been admitted to KSU-CVM!”. I couldn’t find a way to contain my happiness.

                                     

                                 CVM-KSU Class of 2014 Logo (Photo: Melissa Watts)

Now, as classes began, things started to become a little bit tougher. Coming from Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean, I had and continue to have plenty of things to become adjusted to (even after being in the states for two years already).  Besides climate, language, and culture changes, I have to deal with many other issues. For example, the fact that I come from a loud culture makes it very hard for me to hear (soft voices) and understand what someone is saying if I’m unable to see the person’s face, or the fact that I’m still learning plenty of common phrases that aren’t taught in an English course but in everyday life. Other events that made the transition rough was the fact that I’m here on my own, (all of my family is in Puerto Rico); I had to quit the most exciting and amazing job I’ve ever had, (Zoological Medicine and Dermatology veterinary technician); I had to learn how to balance my personal life with my professional life; and learn how to live off student loans, in other words how to budget time and money. But, if you ask me which of all of these was the hardest transition I would have to say letting my job go; it took me more than one full semester to get over it. However, all of these sacrifices are completely worth it! I’m having the time of my life, making my dream come true.

Dr. James Carpenter and I

              Isla Verde, Puerto Rico

                      Academically, I think the hardest part of the freshman year is the ice breaking event: the first test, the BONES test. Everyone is wondering what it will be like, everyone is nervous, everyone is anxiously awaiting the outcome. Amazingly, everyone passes it and we realize that it is simply another test. All of our late night study sessions paid off. We learned that if we study hard enough the outcome will be what we all expect: to pass! After the first test is out of our way, we have a great celebration called the SHAFT party and then the rest of the year just continues to roll.

I’m so grateful and blessed to be here. I have made great friends, friends I love as the sisters I don’t have, clinicians I love as family, classmates I wouldn’t trade for anything because thanks to them I’ve grown as a person and as a professional. I wouldn’t have made it without the support of my family, my boyfriend’s support and help, and without my friends  

Now, second year BRING IT ON!

Creative Corner- "Flight"

By Kelsey Shaw

Cornell University

Family

By Oneal Peters

Colorado State University

The term multifactorial and poorly understood is a favourite amongst my professors and classmates. Even the very whisper of the word is met with a resounding moan because let’s face it, the reason certain conditions earn this terminology in veterinary medicine is because we have no clue how to explain it so we paste some fancy word to cover up our disillusion and we move on.

Family is sort of multifactorial and poorly understood for me and I suspect many others feel the same way. While I know what family is and what it means to me in my own life, I know that I wouldn’t ever be able to explain how my family is to anyone not directly in our clan.  That’s what’s so wonderful about it. It’s your own secret, something that you don’t have to share with anyone if you don’t want to. But here I am, attempting to explain how my family has helped me not only handle vet school now, but how they helped me prepare for this my entire life.

I can remember my dad telling me about his little sister, even when I was very young. He said that he had encouraged her not to sit around and behave like every other suburban middle class school girl but instead to work hard at school so she could be something one day. And somehow it had worked. She was valedictorian of her high school class and went on to get pristine grades in college. Now she is an executive in a major engineering firm, and owns a significant portion of the companies’ shares. So there it was, a random story about my smarty pants Aunt lingering in my brain as I grew up. I didn’t pay much attention to my dad’s influence on others until the other day when I listened to him talking to my younger sibling. “Everyday,” he said, scruffing up his wild grey hair and pausing while he tasted the words in his mouth, making sure they came out just right “you should either learn something new or make some money. If you do that, your life won’t be wasted.” My siblings just stare and sigh, another speech from their dad to add to all the others. “Yes dad, we know,” they reply, wanting to move past the lecture onto more exciting topics of conversation. I sit and watch, smile, I’ve heard it all before too. I am sure my Aunt did as she grew up, eating up her big brothers advice with a voracious appetite, so eager to please him just for the sake of making him proud. And now I realize what has always been there. The subtle urging of my father, quietly and precisely encouraging you to succeed, at first to make him proud, but as time goes on you start to try your hardest for yourself. Eventually, that’s all there is left and you forget that it all started with small pieces of advice, placed in the atmosphere for those who want it.

Veterinary school has its many challenges, and each member of my family, whether it’s a friend, my husband, sister, brother or mother has helped me get through those tough days, each person helping me in their own unique way. But it’s those moments like tonight, studying (and writing) at one in the morning that my dad is there for me, a steady voice in my head encouraging me to keep going no matter what and do my very best at all times and to always remember nothing worth doing is ever easy. The support from my family is mutifactorial, but perhaps now, after looking back all those years, it’s slightly better understood.

Pfizer Summer Experience

By Valerie Koenig

Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

Class of 2013

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.

Creative Corner- "Wildebeest"

By Amelia Gessner