How to Become a Doctor and Other Random Updates

I just found a very easy way to become a doctor. Apparently, all you need to do is get an abstract accepted to present at a meeting. Then all communication with you is addressed as Dr. whoever even if you constantly reply and give no indication that you are possibly a doctor. I get that it's the safe way for these people to address me when they are uncertain, but I am not ready for people to be calling me doctor.

Lesson 1: Spell Good: A doctor was reading a history from a referring vet and came across a misspelling - I think "strider" instead of "stridor". She made the comment that she immediately thinks he's an idiot even though the more likely explanation is that he was in a hurry. It was a good lesson to pay attention to detail because little things like misspellings can decrease your credibility with your colleagues.

I started this a long time ago and there were going to be more lessons, but I can't think of any right now.


Well, just got back from a research trip to Alaska. It was cool since it was my first time there and I got to see a lot of the state and talk with a bunch of mushers. It was awesome to drive around and have mountains in the background everywhere. The rest of the research team was super cool too. We were joking around most of the trip and got serious for business so it was a great atmosphere the whole time despite the very little sleep.

Third year started and it was funny because none of us were prepared. There's a sense of we don't care and don't stress out anymore. We're all sick of the classroom and ready to start clinics in January. I just put in my preferences for clinical rotations which should be interesting. I feel like I have no clue what's going on in school. I just had a lab that I was completely unprepared for but it was very laidback and we were learning how to anesthetize animals. I actually saw a bunch of it on my trip so it was a nice review. I need to get back to watching the lectures I missed and will try to update this more regularly.

A lot of stuff is coming up - I need to make a poster for my research by the end of the month and exams will start soon and then I need to review my presentation from last year to present again in mid-October. I volunteered to help in the anesthesia lab on Thursday to hopefully anesthetize the dog and scrub in (I hope I get to do something because it looked boring from what I saw today) on a spay/neuter. It should be good practice for later this semester.

Update

So I had some exams at the end of the semester which was fun. We had 9 exams in 15 days. That's ridiculous!!! That means we basically had 2 weeks of finals because they wouldn't fit in one week. Oh and the 1st years were done on Thursday and had easier finals than we did last year. Um, I'm sorry but if you don't have at least a full week of finals, I do not consider that vet school.

Systemic Path had the most memorable final. The professor decided to make it cumulative this year to make it EASIER. I don't understand the logic either. While studying for it, we realized that we had no idea what to study or how questions would be asked for certain sections - mainly derm and ophtho. We were given 40 review images with the diagnoses so I memorized all that info and expected to see the images on the exam. Wrong!! I learned absolutely nothing from those sections and it's very difficult to diagnose/describe 3d lesions using a 2d image on a computer screen. But I did learn to always use "ulcerative" when describing a lesion.

Oh, and I got sick during finals which made the experience so much more enjoyable. In the end, I'm glad the semester is over...it was the worst thing ever...grades were bad, but could've been worse. My class thinks I'm extremely interested in orthopedics now because of my research and one professor that pointed me out a couple times that semester. I'm cool with ortho, but I'm not all about it. And another prof has become my new BFF and I don't know how or why. He sneaked up on me the other day when I was working on my research so we had a chat about what I'm doing this summer. It's all really weird. I've never been a fan of professors trying too hard to be friends with the students.

So the night I finished finals, I couldn't sleep because of the emotional high and I remembered that I had to write a grant for my summer research and submit it by the end of the month. It was a little bit of a freak out moment. It turns out that it wasn't that bad and was just submitted today. I've also been working on client consent forms, letters of support, and a bunch of other technical things that are apparently involved in research. So far, it's been a fairly laidback summer so that's good. I had a list of things I would do everyday (like practicing suturing) but none of that has happened.

Burnt Out

Needless to say, school has kept me a little busy lately. A lot of tests, wasting time, and not being able to focus are a bad combination. I don't know what happened this past month but it was a bit scary. I would study to a point where I knew I could pass the test and then stop. My grades show that I was slacking off too.

Some cool things that happened last month are that we learned how to do some nerve blocks, epidurals, and bandaging. It's nice to do some practical stuff amidst the many hours in the classroom. Oh, the classroom - so when it starts getting warmer outside, the heating system doesn't realize it and keeps pumping hot air into the room and BAM - welcome to the SAUNA, good luck focusing while you're dripping sweat.

Also, I almost got a ticket last week. I'm riding my bike, yes BIKE, back to my apartment and fly through a no walk signal - it was perfectly timed as cars were coming from both ways and I had plenty of time. I stop at the next traffic light and watch a cop car turn a quick U-turn and pull up next to me. I was thinking if I did something wrong it would only be a $20 ticket.
Cop: Do you know why I'm contacting you?
Me: Uh, no
Cop: Why didn't you stop at the no walk sign?
Me: Uh, I didn't know I had to.
Cop: Well, you do and you're riding on the sideWALK and crossWALK.
He takes my license and gives me a warning if I agree to tell all my bicyclist friends (there's one that I know of) that we need to ride in the street (some places there are designated areas but if not just on the right side of the road) because it's safer. I learned that it's a $100 fine for riding in the crossWALK and sideWALK and a $150 fine for running a traffic signal in the street. Lesson learned: Use the crosswalk to run a red light and save $50. The funny thing is that as we were talking, a bunch of bikes were flying by on the walk areas and he was yelling at them. Then when he let me go, I almost rode across the crosswalk, but luckily I remembered and got off my bike and walked it across the street.

The annoying things: it's supposed to be safer? riding a few feet away from cars where I'll probably get run over when they turn is probably not safer than riding 15 feet away on the sidewalk and having time to react if someone tries to kill me. Why are the bike racks off of the sideWALKs? How do I get to them? Some of the sidewalks on campus have designated biking areas....uh, mixed signals? I think I'm going to call the police on all the little kids riding their bikes on the sidewalk around my apartment because they should be riding in the street where it's safer.

As you can see, sadly the most exciting thing that happened in the last month was me getting stopped by a cop on my bike.

4 more weeks

Update on Terminal Surgeries

So the new curriculum was explained to us and it sounds pretty good. We will have the opportunity to do more procedures on cadavers than how it was in the old curriculum on live animals. I think the class concerns are still about bleeding and individual confidence. Knowing about the advantages, I'm looking forward to next semester and my only concern is my confidence as a surgeon.

Here is a good article about what's going on.

If you think this is awesome because less animals will be killed - uh, FYI: We are still using about the same number of animals. They were just killed at the pound instead of the school. I guess the only difference is that they will not be purpose-bred dogs.

Terminal Surgeries Have Been Terminated

Last year, we received an announcement that got rid of the rumor of no more terminal surgeries. However, we were just told that our class will not be doing terminal surgeries, instead we will learn on cadavers. I don't know where anyone stands on this but here's the facts:

Terminal surgeries are the first surgeries the students get to do. Animals are anesthetized and provided proper analgesia (pain meds) during surgery but never wake up from the surgery. Cruel right? Well, the reason they aren't recovered is to prevent further pain. We are just learning so hopefully we did everything right and then we are not skilled in handling tissues without causing much trauma (read pain after surgery). Basically if the animal woke up, it would probably be in a lot of pain. In Michigan the law requires us to use animals bred for this specific purpose and it is illegal to use animals in pounds that will be euthanized anyways (no idea why).

Reason for this change: school and faculty are under a lot of pressure. Victory for animal activists everywhere!!!! Right? Hold on, last time I checked cadavers and live animals are slightly different. So people that think this is a victory, please bring your animals to me when I start doing real surgeries. Hopefully, your pet won't bleed too much because I'm not used to bleeding - those cadavers didn't bleed. Oh and operating on intestines in an actual animal instead of on a table may throw me off a bit too.

I don't know about you, but I would rather have students learn on animals without owners than those with owners that are attached to their pets.

I think it's ironic that people think this is a victory because they THINK they are relieving pain and suffering in animals when these people are just uninformed and are probably actually causing more pain in animals.

Just some thoughts.

Spring Break is Almost Here!!!

OK, the 5 exams in 2 weeks is over and I survived. GPA-speaking there was nothing to brag about so I guess there won't be any easy finals this semester. This week was extremely busy too:

Monday - Cardio exam. No pressure but if you fail this class, just add another year to your current graduation date. I thought I knew the stuff, but the questions were different and harder than I expected. I also didn't use my time wisely and ran out of time when I was taking a second look at it. Barely passed, good except for the whole goal of preserving GPA. Later in the week, the professor gave us points back which made me much happier and feel like less of a loser.

Tuesday - Suturing lab that I didn't practice for and just relied on prior experience which paid off since I didn't get yelled at (always a success). Leave school, finish packing for presentation in Colorado, get on plane, get delayed 1.5 hours in Chicago, miss last shuttle of the night to Breckenridge. Continue to Wednesday ->

Wednesday - Day of presentation: Find a place to sleep in Denver airport until the first shuttle leaves at 8 am. FYI: there's a chapel that has fairly comfy carpet on the floor and is probably the best place to sleep - I use "sleep" loosely since I may have got 2 hours that night. Take shuttle to Breckenridge, look at mountains and everyone skiing and think how fun it would be to do that, go back to hotel room and practice presentation and study for clin path exam on friday, put on suit, register for meeting, notice everyone is wearing jeans, ski pants, and not at all dressed up - not even presenters, get rid of my suit jacket. Also, let me set this up with the fact that I am the only non-doctor presenting and that there were only 40 people in the room at 4 pm when the first presentation began. My presentation was at 5:45 and I noticed the room slowly filling as time went by. It also hit me that I was just before the key speaker of the night. It was my time so I started walking to the stage. Fortunately, I was too tired to panic as I looked at a full room with people standing in the back - estimate: 200-300 people. (Oh and sidenote: I'm not a public speaker at all. The night would be considered a success if I didn't pee my pants.) I made sure to mention that I was a 2nd year vet student in my intro in hopes that I wouldn't get any hard questions at the end. I finished the presentation and now for questions:

First guy: speaking really fast, "Words, words, words, concentration of BMP, words, words, words?"
Me: Stunned, trying to figure out what he said, "I don't know."
Audience laughs
Me: Dreading stating "I don't know" for a bunch of other questions.
Second guy: "It's ok to say you don't know." Tossing me an easy question, "What's your opinion on the importance of VEGF?"
Me: "It's super important." That was a summary. It was much more scientific.
Lady: Asks about COX1. Not sure what the question really was.
Me: Talking about one word from the question and hoping it somewhat answered the question.
Finished.

The rest of the night I had a lot of people congratulating me presumably because I'm a 2nd year and not so much that my presentation was any good. It was really cool and now I can put it on my CV. I must say that it's pretty cool seeing your own name on the schedule for a somewhat important meeting. Overall, I think it was a mission accomplished.

Thursday: Leave for Denver early in the morning, fly to Chicago to be delayed again, get home, finish studying for clin path.

Friday: Take exam, finish classes, go home and sleep

Now I just have to finish some homework, study for one more exam, and listen to missed lectures. One week till spring break (aka a time to relax for a couple days and catch up on studying).

Hibernation Will Begin Soon

I'm only 3 weeks into this semester, but I'm so far behind in all of my classes. I thought I would get caught up this weekend because we didn't have classes friday due to the state veterinary conference going on. The plan was to review all of the material we have covered so far in all my classes. This would be my last chance to catch up before the exams begin on Tuesday. However, reality happens. I was invited to attend a wound reconstruction wet lab. This is a $500 lab that clinicians around the state pay to attend. There goes half of my Sunday. The catch: help set-up and clean-up. Then I find out I need to attend 5 hours of lectures on Saturday to prepare for it. Goodbye, Saturday.

Don't get me wrong, the lab was awesome. I was learning meshing patterns to extend existing skin to cover a defect, relieving tension in the skin and on sutures, and isolating vessels to be preserved in rotational flaps. Yeah, I don't know what that last sentence means either. Apparently, we'll learn this stuff later this semester so I have a little headstart. It was also good practice suturing which I will also officially learn this semester.

The good thing is that I did close the gap in clin path for being 150 pages behind in the reading. I reviewed for my virology exam everyday and reviewed musculoskeletal material. I feel like our class schedule gives us a lot of free time, but my extracurricular activities are eating up needed study/sleep time. I don't even feel like it's that much either. I tutor 2 nights a week for a total of 3 hours, try to prepare for a presentation later this month, try to look for literature about my possible research project this summer, (the last 2 are more on my to-do-list than my actual list of things I do) and then indoor soccer starts this week. It's frustrating at times thinking that I'm so far behind, but I had every opportunity to be caught up. Oh well, I guess that's living the vet school dream.

Anyways, exams will begin on tuesday which means I will enter hibernation mode where I study, sleep, and attend class. As usual, my goal is to do well on these first exams to give myself room for error/slacking off at the end of the semester. I'm a little scared that my test-taking skills have been subpar so far this semester exhibited by my misreading questions on a couple quizzes. I don't think my brain knows the semester has started and it's game time.

3 Days of Orthopedics

A couple weeks ago, I was assigned to the orthopedic department for 3 days. I imagined myself taking patient histories, helping with office calls, and being told to do a lot of stuff I haven't learned yet. Well, I was right about the last one. Monday morning I was finishing writing my first official SOAP when an intern told me I would be going to surgery soon. This is awesome!! Then I find out who the clinician is and they are very intimidating and have a reputation of being extremely strict. Not so awesome!!
I meet with the clinicians as they're reviewing the radiographs and find out that we will be repairing a tibial fracture. While prepping the dog, I received some very good advice from an anesthesiologist: "Make sure you pee before the surgery." The surgery lasted 5 or 6 hours and I was glad I followed the advice. I was extremely tired that night not only because of the marathon surgery but also because in ortho surgeries, we apparently have to wear lead vests under our gowns because we are taking radiographs throughout the surgery. That night I went to dinner with the scary surgeon, the resident, and another clinician. The surgeon ended up buying my dinner and offering me a summer job. It was a nice change of pace to talk to these doctors about life and get advice on what I should be doing now to get where I want to be. While this surgeon is still somewhat intimidating, I realize they are not mean, and they do just want to make students into the best doctors possible. This was so much more than I expected from this holiday job!!
The next 2 days I learned a lot about caring for these dogs that were hit-by-cars and assisting with 2 more femoral fracture repairs. I have become very proficient at suctioning blood, holding a leg for very long times (which reminds me of Turk on Scrubs when he scratches his nose with some guy's toe during surgery), cutting suture, and cleaning instruments. I did get to practice suturing and stapling during the closure on the last dog. My last hour working was spent discharging one of the dogs with the resident to the owners. This was a very rewarding time to see this dog walking again and the owners so happy to have him back!!

It's Like Christmas

After classes ended, I wanted to start reading a book for fun and I had 2 to choose from that I bought back in August: "All My Patients have Tales" by Jeff Wells AND "Tell Me Where It Hurts" by Nick Trout. Yes, that's right I read about veterinarians for fun when I'm not studying. Talk about well-rounded. Anyways, Nick Trout is a surgeon so I started reading his book and was hooked. I highly recommend this book to any aspiring small animal vets and especially surgeons. He explains clinical diseases and techniques very clearly but not too simple since I was still learning more about procedures I was somewhat familiar with. He also has enough humor to keep it entertaining. In the first chapter, he talks about a dog with GDV (gastric dilatation and volvulus). Briefly, it usually occurs in deep-chested dogs after a big meal. During exercise, the stomach twists (volvulus) and the gas being produced during digestion? becomes trapped - dog is unable to burp - and results in a bloated stomach (gastric dilatation) with no way to release the pressure. Obviously, the dog does not feel good and time is important because the twisting can cut off blood supply to the stomach as well as the spleen.
Up until today, my job at the teaching hospital has been rather boring. We have 3-4 people giving treatments to 2 animals in the mornings. One day, I barely did anything because we have too many people doing too little work. Today, I got to take care of a German Shepherd with Myasthenia Gravis (animal's body makes antibodies to acetylcholine receptors ->dog gets stiff/tired after exercise) and possibly secondary megaesophagus. This dog looked terrible 3-4 days ago - not moving much, not eating much, salivating a ton. Today, the dog went for a walk outside, wasn't salivating much, and scarfed down a can of food. He may have even gone home today. It was fun talking to the doctor about myasthenia gravis and its treatment/prognosis. It's a good chance to see what I know and what I have to learn. There are a few drugs to treat myasthenia gravis, but the important thing to look for are acetylcholinesterase inhibitors.
I was also on-call for surgery today. My plan was to sit at home and watch movies all day until my phone rang and I was called into surgery for an emergency GDV. It was an answered prayer to scrub in on the surgery. I am still struggling with finding the arm holes for the gown, but the rest of the scrubbing and gloving went fine. I always find one arm hole and have no clue where the other is. I gowned up and was put in charge of suction. We immediately removed 1 liter of bloody fluid from the abdomen. At this point, I was thinking, "Oh great, my first real surgery I get to scrub in and it's going to bleed out." My thinking seemed to be confirmed when we could not find the source of the blood and 1 liter approached 2. Finally, we found a broken vessel and ligated it. The rest of the surgery went fairly smoothly and I can add retracting and cutting suture to my resume'. The surgery was a couple hours long due to all the complications.
In the middle of that last paragraph with 5 minutes left for being on call, I was called in again by the surgeon. He said he could get someone else, but I couldn't pass up another opportunity to scrub in. This one was a pyometra (pus in the uterus). I arrived to finish scrubbing the patient. Gowning went much smoother this time. Just before the surgery, I confirmed that the point of the surgery was to just remove the uterus which is what we did. The surgery only lasted 20-30 minutes. Tomorrow we meet to write the surgery report and discharge - things I was asked to do, but won't learn until next year.
To put the cherry on the top of my GDV and pyometra filled cake, I got paid for all of this that I would have done for free. I love my job!!!

3/8ths a vet

I just finished my 3rd semester of vet school, and I am very excited for it to be over. Finals were ridiculous - I was only getting 3-5 hours of sleep each night. In the middle of the week, our public health exam was extremely difficult. I thought I could have easily missed 20-30 questions out of 110. I did slightly better than I expected, but then Christmas came early this week when I received a higher grade in the class than I expected. Overall, the gpa dropped, but not as much as I anticipated. I need to get my act together for next semester since I will be busier with work and other extracurriculars than this last semester.

Over break, I am working in the teaching hospital. My "interview" occurred when I was unlocking my bike and the surgery tech asked if I wanted a job, and I was officially hired during final week. Yesterday was orientation and it looks like I should learn a lot doing the treatments over the holidays. I've already learned where more things are and some of the paperwork to fill out. The most difficult part of orientation was the emergency part. The tech kept asking clinical questions that we should technically know, but my brain was turned off after finals. Hopefully, I'll learn a lot this next week and be more prepared for clinics next year. I'm also on-call somedays and will get to scrub in if an emergency comes in. SOOOO, I hate to say it, but I hope some emergencies happen.

10 More Days

Last week, we had a lab that was really cool. I learned how to fix a pneumothorax (not that hard), place a chest tube, intubate a dog, and how to theoretically do transtracheal washes and tracheostomies. I was excited because I thought I was going to learn how take a pen and stab a choking dog in the throat (tracheostomy) and open an airway like the heroes do in the movies with people all the time. However, the emergency vet said he's seen 1 or 2 in the past 7 years which means I'll never do it and doing a blunt dissection to place the tracheostomy tube is much more likely, though less exciting. It was easily the best part of this semester.

I also had my Pathology final today. It feels so good to have another class done. I have no more tutoring for the semester. Everything is coming to an end.... not fast enough though. Now, I have classes the rest of this week and then finals all next week. The pain is about to begin. Oh, how I missed the taking a final, having 22 hours to prepare for the next one, and then repeat 4 times - all the while getting less sleep as the week progresses. Welcome back Finals Week!!

I'm trying to start studying hardcore, but the motivation is hard to find. I was talking to a 3rd year the other day who had some encouraging words: he was saying how I didn't pay attention this semester because there wasn't much worth listening to (I totally agree). Then next semester, he said the classes will be interesting, but it will just be too hard to pay attention in class. Next semester's final schedule is supposed to be the worst too. At least, I have something to look forward to.

Time to get back to respiratory diseases with a little bacteriology sprinkled on top.

Thanksgiving Break

Apparently, a month has flown by and I didn't realize it. I've just been focusing on surviving the semester and it sounds like next semester is going to be even worse. I was very happy when the Thanksgiving break finally arrived. It's a much needed break from classes and a time to reflect. I know I complain a lot, but I have so much to be thankful for and I need to remember these things occasionally:
1. Even though vet school is hard and I hate it at times, I was given a chance to experience it when many are denied each year. Hundreds of people would do anything for my seat in the class.
2. Gradewise, I have caught a lot of breaks over the last year and a half to maintain my current gpa.
3. I have met a lot of great people in my class that I wouldn't have had the chance to see these people everyday if I was accepted one of the 2 previous times I applied.
4. I have not had any major illness or injury. Many people in my class have been hit by cars, had the swine flu, or major family problems. I can't even imagine trying to study through that and keep up with the material. I am very thankful that I haven't experienced any of those so far.
5. I have a lot of family and friends that are extremely supportive. These people keep me sane and remind me that there is more to life than vet school and that it will all be over someday.

Possibly Burnt Out

The epi exam last friday wasn't too bad, just extremely long. We now have pathology tomorrow and public health on thursday. I feel pretty good about pathology, but may just start public health tonight. You would think public health would be an easy A, but not with this professor. He is notorious for asking trivia questions and that's the same impression I got from his random lecturing. Granted, I rarely paid attention in the class, but in my defense I don't think it's physically possible to listen to an entire lecture of his.

However, I believe I am currently burnt out. My brain is not functioning right and I am extremely tired. It was hard focusing in any of our lectures today. I think I actually paid the most attention to the final lecture which was odd. We are currently in the middle of a test taking marathon too - I think it's 5 exams in 14 days. It's a terrible feeling knowing that I can't focus but I have to study. Well, it's naptime followed by some hopefully productive studying.

Third Semester

Well, I'm 5 weeks into my third semester and as you can tell by the lack of posts on this blog, it's been a little busy. This is very strange because we don't have many morning classes and you would think I could get a lot done. At least 2 days a week, we don't have class until 1 pm. However, I somehow find myself at a loss for time. The only extracurricular activities I have are tutoring physics 3 or 4 hours/week and working in the lab when I have time.

I just took our 3rd exam yesterday. It was pharm and it was bad. Here's a taste: dermatopharmacology covered 3 or 4 of the total 13 lectures and its material was 20 pages of text and 160+ powerpoint slides. That is way too much information to even attempt to remember!! Plus, we were learning about drugs to cure skin diseases that we haven't been taught. It would have been nice to know about the disease instead of memorizing that this drug cures these unknown diseases. All in all, it went ok for me, but I know a lot of people failed it which I completely understand. I feel it was an exam that everyone was on the same playing field no matter how much you studied - we were all guessing on most questions and in the end your score depended on how lucky your guesses were. But I noticed a difference in my class from people failing a test 1st semester compared to this one: It's almost like we don't care that much or we're just used to it or we know it will probably be curved. There were no tears and no one sulking. I only knew people did poorly from what they told me. I think we have officially been desensitized to our test scores.

Over the past 2 weeks, we had our first micro and toxicology exams. Micro went very well for me and I felt that I may have overprepared for it but it did pay off and I can take it a little easier on the next exams. However, the toxicology exam had my number. While I didn't do terrible, I would have liked to get a couple more questions correct in a class with only 2 exams. I actually did fairly well on the part that I didn't study much and have a chance to take twice.

I do feel like my test-taking skills are improving which is consistent with the professors and 4th years telling me that vet school makes you into a test-taking machine. I'm really started to see that conversion. I feel like I'm getting better answering questions that I don't necessarily know the correct answer. Another sign is that I don't think I will get upset as much when I fail. I understand that it will still hurt and shake confidence, but I don't think it would be as bad as last semester.

I have an epidemiology test on Friday which I'm not too scared of. The old tests seem straightforward and the professor is really cool. The downside is that I may have only paid attention to half of the lectures. I also want to start studying for path and public health exams next week. And somewhere in there, I want to work on finishing my first draft of my research article that I will be submitting to Veterinary Surgery for publishing. Lately, I've been getting calls from the new guy in the lab I did research in last summer so I will probably have to go in there and collect samples sometime this week. I think these are the reasons I feel busy.

Japan

After my 26 hour visit to Singapore, we went back to Japan. English is not the primary language over there so I didn't understand anything. It actually wasn't that hard to order food at restaurants since they either spoke some English there or had a menu in English. I went to a bunch of castles and temples which was cool.

One place had a bunch of sacred deer wandering around the grounds. Most of these deer were accustomed to people so you could pet and hang out with them. There were vendors selling crackers to feed the deer. As soon as you buy the crackers, you are swarmed by deer. I was trying to break off pieces and slowing feed them, but a couple were biting my shorts and I just wanted to get rid of the crackers and not feel like I was about to get mauled. One of the deer looked nasty because he was very dirty for an unknown reason with 1 antler and was coughing (tuberculosis?). There he is:

We visited an aquarium there which was actually a good size. The highlight there was getting to pet a walrus. At the end of the show, the walruses walked (not sure if that's the correct term for how they move) by the audience. I also learned that those animal shows at aquariums and zoos are not as interesting when you have no idea what the animal trainer is saying.

On, my last day in Japan we went to a safari park. This was one of the coolest experiences of my life. It was basically a drive-thru zoo and the animals were free to walk next to your car. Giraffes walked right next to our car and stopped traffic. Lions and tigers were also roaming freely. You weren't supposed to roll down windows, but it was necessary to get good pictures at times. At the park, they also had more zoo-like exhibits. Some highlights were the rats swimming with the hippos, feeding the squirrel monkeys and springhares, and petting the wallabies.

Singapore

I know school has started a few weeks ago, but this is my first chance to write something. I will try to catch up this blog in between studying over the next week. Warning: this is not directly vet school related. Anyways, my only vacation this summer was going to Japan, Singapore, and Cambodia for a couple weeks. Research and jobs ate up the rest of my summer.

This was my first international trip. To start off, I flew 13 hours to Japan where I had about an hour layover before I left for Singapore. This first flight was not that bad. The flight to Singapore was 7 hours and the last 3 hours were the hardest. I don't sleep well on planes and I was trying to stay awake so I could sleep when I got there at 2 AM. I was only in Singapore for 26 hours before flying back to Japan. We went to the Singapore Zoo during the day and a Night Safari that evening. The Zoo was cool - white tigers were the best and it's probably right up there with the San Diego Zoo. I was slightly disappointed because I had read about how they used natural barriers instead of fences for the animals and I expected to get amazing pictures of all the animals. Sadly, there were a lot more fences than I expected. The best part was being able to pet the lemurs - they were roaming in the bird and bat area that you walk through. One was just chilling while we were petting it so I decided to start palpating anatomical landmarks. So I started with the spine of the scapula and the borders going to the humerus and I stopped when it snapped at my sister-in-law. Lesson 1: Lemurs don't like to be palpated. Another lemur was walking across a log above the path when it stopped, looked my way, and appeared to be getting ready to leap. There was only this small branch right above me that it surely wasn't going to jump onto. Lesson 2: Lemurs will leap onto seemingly too small of branches. It jumped, landed on the branch and swung into me. It let me pet it as it sat on the branch so we were cool even though it smacked me with a branch.

The Night Safari was cool, but we couldn't take pictures. This was probably the place I read about with the natural barriers and very few fences. It was cool to see the animals do their thing in the dark as they were looking for food and wandering around. However, it was a lot of walking in one day and we didn't see all the animals because we were tired and couldn't find the rest of the path.

Overall, Singapore was cool because it was so clean and green. Granted, there's some harsh punishments for chewing gum, littering, and jay-walking. The Zoo was still really cool and filled up the whole day with no problem. It was a good start to my first international experience.

The Summer is Ending

Oh man, about 3 more weeks until classes start again. This summer has flown by. It was filled with 2 research projects and teaching a physics class. Today is technically my last day for the research program. Tomorrow I fly to North Carolina for a symposium and a poster presentation.

I saw the comments from the students in physics class yesterday. That felt like sucker punch. I knew they could be bad because it was my research projects were my highest priority this summer, not to mention I'm a boring person and I feel bad that they had to listen to me at 8 AM. It was a learning lesson though. I don't think I will be as harsh with my teachers on evaluations anymore. It's kinda funny though because this whole summer I've been saying I'm not a teacher. I was asked to teach because I tutored students in undergrad. I can tutor; I can't teach.

Oh and last week I had to give a 10 minute presentation to the summer research students and mentors. It wasn't the best presentation ever. Then came the questions which I'm pretty sure I answered some completely wrong - my answers were the exact opposite of what I did in my project. My bad.

Even though today's my last day to go into the lab, I know I will be in there a lot more during this fall semester. There's some cool projects coming up, and I have to finish writing my paper and get it published (hopefully that's possible).

So tomorrow I go to NC and get back Sunday. Then I leave on Wednesday for my vacation to Japan, Singapore, and Cambodia. It's a 20 hr flight!! I was wondering what I'm going to do sitting in a chair for 20 hours - but hey that's kinda like studying for finals. This is going to be an experience since the only other country I've been to is Canada and I don't even think that counts. I really don't know what to expect, but it should be fun. The best part is that I get back the Sunday afternoon before classes start. Can you say jetlag? That will make for an interesting week of classes.

Medical Shows

I do enjoy watching the medical shows on TV. They occasionally bring up diseases, pathogens, and other medical issues that we talk about in class. Personally, I like House and now Royal Pains on USA. There's something enjoyable about watching these unusual doctors treat their patients that always seem to figure out the case. However, the more I learn, the more problems I see in these shows.

I was just watching Royal Pains and Hank, the doctor, just performed a non-emergency surgery paying no attention to aseptic technique. He pulled out some latex gloves from a box and used those for surgery. It wouldn't be that hard for him to carry around some packs of sterile gloves and throw on a mask occasionally. I'll assume that the instruments were sterile. I get that it's TV, but that's my soapbox for the day and I still enjoy watching these shows.

A Busy Month

My research project is winding down. Now it's on to writing the paper and trying to get it published. I don't know how hard that will be since our results weren't too significant.

A couple weeks ago I got to scrub in on my first surgery. It was an awesome experience! The hardest part was gowning and gloving, but it was good practice. It was a skin graft to cover a wound. During the surgery, all I really did was cut suture, but it was still fun to be right there and see everything. I was also doing anesthesia for some other surgeries. None of my dogs behaved according to the normals. One dog had low blood pressure throughout the surgery and another was breathing too fast. I still don't know what the ideal dog is supposed to be like under anesthesia. I've also been gaining a lot of experience bandaging wounds. I'm really excited about all of this because it gives me a chance to learn some of these things before I get to clinics.

The last few weeks were quite busy, but things are starting to slow down as projects come to a close. Sadly, this also means that the summer is ending and school will be starting up. I can't believe it's been about 2.5 months since finals. I had said I was going to review material from last semester and look at stuff for next semester but now of that has happened. I guess that's how it goes.

Brain Freeze

I went for a run the other day when it was actually hot in Michigan. I got back to my apartment and grabbed a gatorade from the fridge. I started drinking and immediately got a brain freeze, but I was so thirsty I kept drinking. I'm finding that doing research puts me in a different mindset - the detective mindset. I started wondering what causes a brain freeze. My hypothesis I came up with was that it was from a countercurrent heat exchange between the cold gatorade going down my esophagus and the internal or common carotid artery. The thought was that the blood going to the brain cooled down as it passed the cold water in the esophagus and made the brain feel cold even from a slight temperature change. It sounds good.

However, the next day I was talking to one of the doctors about it and ended up googling it. The real reason is that nerves in the roof of the mouth sense the coldness and go to the brain. Yes, people have done research on this stuff. Apparently, a brain freeze can be avoided by pressing the tongue to the hard palate and heating it back up.