Free Stuff for Doctors

We had a discussion today of whether we as veterinarians should take free pens, lunches, and other stuff from pharmaceutical reps. The moderators obviously thought that these freebies would influence our decisions. I guess the thought is that we would be distracted with the gifts and not look at the research. Are we that dumb? I understand how it can help doctors recognize these drugs/companies names, but I don't think I would blindly start prescribing the drugs because of a pen. I think the big things like vacations may instill a feeling of obligation to support that company, but I grab pens whenever I see them.

One good point that was brought up was that we need to be aware of what we advertise. By this I mean, what are our clients and the general public seeing written on our pens, notepads, shirts, or whatever? I have a Hill's backpack and I actually do support Hill's, but if it said Purina on it, I would probably still use it because it's a good backpack. However, I don't think a veterinarian should advertise companies that they wouldn't recommend. I think a lot of people accidentally advertise companies by using free stuff.

As a side note, the comment was made about making MSU a no free lunch (and other gifts) zone. However, companies like Hill's provide a lot of free gifts to the students, discounted food, money for orientation activities, and even money for student tutors. Taking away this stuff would make vet school a lot less enjoyable.

Avoiding Studying

I have an anatomy exam tomorrow, but I do not feel like studying anymore. I just had my animal handling practical, which was a complete waste of time. I had to halter a sheep, tie a knot, pretend to draw blood, get a heart rate, find lymph nodes, and give a body condition score to the sheep. All of which took about 7 minutes with me taking my time. It took me longer to get to the farm!
Today we had another prime example of a student asking a question that was so far below the professor's intelligence that he couldn't answer it. It's kinda sad when the professor spends 5-10 minutes trying to answer the question and he starts talking about stuff that is unrelated to the student's question. This does provide some entertainment during the class, but it also gets frustrating very quickly because it seems that the right sentence would answer the question and the fact that the student should understand the material because it was covered on our first test. This is just a reminder to really smart people to actually listen to the question and don't be tricked if the question seems dumb. To everyone else: don't ask your questions before you've looked in your notes.
It looks like week 7 of vet school is when you become sick of studying. I know I should study for anatomy, but I probably know enough to pass the tests tomorrow. OK, back to studying.

Random Thoughts

First, I passed my micro exam with an 84%! The average was a 2.0 and 66 people were recommended a tutor. I'm surprised at the comments made by my fellow students like "what am I doing wrong?" or "I'm used to 4.0 and I haven't gotten one yet." Is this unexpected? Was vet school supposed to be easy? I don't understand why they are surprised that vet school is really hard.

Second, I drove my truck 90 miles yesterday and it was fine. I get to school and try to drive 2 miles and it's not driving right (by right I mean able to exceed 25 mph). Today I sort of figured it out, but it's not consistent. My truck is currently an anti-theft machine as no one could steal it if they tried. It would be nice if it were back to normal again though.

Third, my ethics paper is being used as an example for the class. Personally, I thought it was worse than my first one that got a B. This week's paper is going to be so much worse since I don't even know what to write about. Hopefully she doesn't expect me to deliver this "spectacular" work all the time.

Another Day, Another A?

Definitely not another A yesterday. We had our microbiology exam and it was bad. I was scared of this one from the start. We had over 100 pages of lecture notes covered on the test. I thought I may be able to dodge the bullet, but no. There were 50 questions. Questions 1-5 I was pretty good with. Then came 6-20 where I was just picking different letters because they were questions about the most obscure things. From 21-40, I felt I had a chance at getting some right. And again 41-50 was bad news again. The only good thing was after when I was talking to my classmates - we found out that we all felt the same about it. I still don't know my score and we don't think there's curves so for now, I'll just wait.

Also, I've noticed a sign that I may be studying too much especially for anatomy. Have you ever been eating chicken and wondered what the names are of all the different muscles you're eating? I know I have and more than once too.

Oh, yesterday I got to draw blood from and stomach tube a sheep. The stomach tubing was interesting because you have to put a syringe in the sheep's mouth to prop it open and pass the tube through it. Then you suck on the tube to make sure you're in the esophagus and not the trachea. Once in the esophagus, you blow in the tube as you pass it to the rumen. Fun times. Drawing blood was also fun. If you've drawn blood from dogs and cats, drawing blood from larger animals is easy because the veins seem huge.

We have a whole week until our next exam so I'm relaxing a little bit!

Another Day

I just got home from classes and it's almost 7pm. Have I ever mentioned that vet school is kinda like prison? I just go where I'm told and then I go home and study. I usually don't even know what the weather is like. Today was a good day from what I remember: I got my histo grade back and it was in the 90s which will be helpful in case I fail future exams. I had a free lunch and dinner. I survived my anatomy lecture and lab exams. The lab exam was harder than I expected, but we'll see how I do.
Oh and best of all, I was just at a lecture about interesting cases in this guy's career. Apparently some vets mistake the ureter and kidney as the uterine horn and ovary. Don't ask. Toothpicks are dangerous to dogs. For example, this one toothpick pierced about every organ (lung, liver, kidney, gall bladder, etc.) in this dog before the dog died. If you see a hole, look where it goes: one dog had a stick through its heart and another one had a broadhead arrow in its head. Anyways, the vet was talking about treating high potassium and I actually understood it because of histo stuff about intracellular and extracellular ions and their pumps. I thought this was really cool because I really didn't see the importance of the information and how it related to things like bloodwork.

First Test

Today we had our first test of vet school. It was histology so I've been studying for the past week for it. It was funny today because I got to watch my classmates stress all day about the test since it was at 5:30. I didn't think the test was that bad, but we'll see when I get my grade back.

Now I have to start studying Anatomy for the exam on Monday. At least I'm interested in this subject so it should be less work. However, this has been another slow week since it feels like today should be Friday.

You can't be good at everything

During our anatomy lectures, the professor talks more about life lessons and random stories from his life. While it's interesting, it makes it hard to figure out what is going to be on the lecture exam. Do we need to know that his dog is on a 70 foot cable when it's outside? One of his life lessons was that you can't be good at everything. You can be good at a lot of things, but not everything. Lately, I haven't been studying anatomy because I kinda know enough to get by for now so I've been focusing on studying histology. However, what he said has got me thinking that I'm probably going to use anatomy in surgery a lot more than I will use histology (if I ever use that). I can't remember ever seeing a vet prepare a slice of tissue to look at. They just send it to the lab. I've started studying more anatomy even though we have a histo test next week.

I'm a week and a half into the program and I can see that my life has been consumed by veterinary medicine. All I do is go to class till 5 and then come home and study. Oh, yesterday we went to the dairy farm and learn some physical exam techniques on the cows. It was really cool, but I'm definitely not a large animal person as they pushed me all over the place. I really thought about going into Subway with my coveralls still on and smelling like a barn, but I changed so people could eat their food without the smells of the farm. See I am considerate to others.