Do grades matter?

Do grades matter?

In vet school, for the average student who does not want to pursue any post vet school education, they do not.  There is some argument among students about this, but almost none among clinic owners.  As long as you make a C and pass your boards, that’s all you need.  They are more concerned with how you will be with clients than in your book learning.  As you can imagine, trying to get a group of students who has never made less than an "A" to believe this is quite difficult. There are a lot of undergraduate 4.0s in vet school. That being said vet school classes aren’t ridiculously hard to a group at this level, it is simply the volume of material that you have to remember and figuring out how to play the game for each class that is the challenge .

Again, the caveat to this is if you want to do an internship and residency after veterinary school… then they do matter.

Veterinarians can do a lot of different things for a living.  They can work with horses, food animals, zoo animals, birds, reptiles, or small mammals. They can go into research, academia, public health, or lab animal medicine. 

They say that you are likely to change your preference in vet school, but I am doubtful about this for myself.   I spent enough time with horse vets, food animal vets, and the zoo vet and working in a small animal practice to know that small animal medicine is what I want to do.  I am not a horse person or a cow person.  I am a dog, cat, bunny person.

Before I got to vet school, I thought that was the only decision I had to make.  My plan was going to work in a small animal clinic and then eventually own one.  I hadn’t really thought about specializing…  until now. 

When a veterinarian specializes they take on an additional internship and residency lasting about four more years after vet school.   So if I specialize that will mean 4 years of college, 1 year of business grad school, 4 years of veterinary school, 1 year of internship, and 3 years of residency…  For those of you who have been counting, that’s 13 years of post high school education.  That’s a lot. Any way I look at it that seems like too much.  But if it was easy everyone would do it, right?  I have a meeting later this week with one of my professors to talk about a surgical residency. I feel very torn.

In favor of a residency:  I will be earning a small salary (between 1/2 and 1/3 of full associates salary) during my internship and residency, which is better than paying to go to school.  I will have a significantly higher earning potential afterward.  I get to be a surgeon, and will likely have a more interesting job than just being a regular small animal practitioner.

Against a residency:  My full earnings will be delayed.  When / If I get a residency, I will have to move my family to another state.  Completing a residency includes a research project – which is scary.  Most prominently, this insane, constant, overwhelming stress about my grades will continue. Lastly, there is not guarantee that you will even get the residency if you apply for it. 

This decision seems so far away, yet so close and for someone like me who prefers to have all her ends ticked and tied it is hard not knowing what my plans are.

First Large Animal Anatomy Exam... Ug.

Anatomy lab is the biggest class that first year Vet students have – over 9 credit hours over the span of the year.  There is a learning curve for the learning curve.  One of the hardest parts is figuring out what you need to know and how to make the material stick in your head.  Small animal anatomy was 3 days a week for 17 weeks in the fall, and large animal anatomy is for 4 days a week for 10 weeks.  A point for those who think a vet is not a real doctor,  their human doctor only had to do the anatomy of one species and only for one semester. (I’m really just jealous.)

Lab is an assault on the senses.  Your nose and eyes burn and tears stream down your face.  Your eyes feels like you are cutting a chemical onion.  Your mucous membranes feel pickled by the end of the first week.  Your skin on your face looks dimpled after a long lab.  It smells terrible, and that smell gets into everything – your bag, your clothes, your hair, and your shoes.  Upperclassmen can tell who is a first year by the way we smell.  The floor gets extremely slippery.  It is all pretty unpleasant.

Last semester the large animals arrived before we were done with the small animals.  During the final exam practical there were 20 dead horses and cows in the corner of the room.  Because of the fumes coming off them, they opened all the doors to the lab…  in mid-December.  So to recap, stress of a cumulative timed, lab practical final, a freezing, smelly, chemical filled room, and 20 large animals in the corner.

Also, the anatomy lab is separate from the rest of the school in a temporary building… a “temporary” building that was built 30 years ago.  If there is a severe weather warning we actually have to leave the building and go outside. As in, if there is a tornado or even a thunder storm, they think that we are safer in the parking lot than in the lab building.

Despite all of this, I really like anatomy.  It feels like the one class we take in first year that really matters, that will have practical application to actually treating animals. I am genuinely interested in knowing what and where everything is.  Working with your hands is also a nice change. 

Yesterday was our first Large Animal Anatomy exam.  It was a little rough, especially for those of us who have never really worked with horse or cow extensively.  This is going to be a different beast from small animal anatomy. I am completely exhausted.

I am looking forward to getting some sleep soon.

... and then there were 100

Today we received an email that we had lost yet another classmate to the stress of vet school.  (Dropped out, not died.) She was in my orientation group and a really great girl.  That puts us down 2 out of 102.  I guess it could be worse, but if I had my way we would graduate with everyone we stared with.  There is always the feeling of “Could I have done more to help?”   One of the other girls in my orientation group said she felt the same way, like if she had put her in her anatomy dissection group maybe she could have kept her coming to class. I reached out to her and let her know that we wanted her here and that I was here to support her.  In the end she had to choose what was right for her, and I am trying not to beat myself up about it.  I am going to miss her as a part of our class.

Later this evening I also found out that one of my friends in my class started taking antidepressants over Christmas.  This sparked a discussion among several of my rather cheery friends talking about how they cried themselves to sleep the day before school started this semester. (and these are people who are making great grades.)  This experience is defintely taking a toll on our emotions.

In other, better, news, I think I have actually made a few real friends.  I am quick to have a lot of casual acquaintances but really slow to make friends that I really want to spend time with.  I think these are some really good ones, and friends are what is going to really get me through this for the next four years.  It feels like some of the pressure is off and I can really be myself more often.  It felt like I had been waiting to exhale until I found some people of my own.  (Or for my vet school peeps keeping my scalenus, intercostals, diaphragm, and serratus dorsalis cranialis contracted.)

Here’s to breathing a little more freely... and to not losing anymore classmates.

If I could only remember where I put that box of motivation...

It is amazing how quickly my motivation wanes.  Last week I was so motivated - I made study schedules.  I was really jazzed about keeping up and not getting behind.  Ha. Ha.  None of that happened.    I did, however, have a great weekend with my husband.   We had a nice homemade breakfast on Saturday, bathed the dogs, went to Wal-Mart, watched TV, went to dinner at Parish, and then went to see The King’s Speech.  The King’s Speech was a really good movie and surprisingly funny.  On Sunday we went to the gym, to church, and to lunch at a Napoli style pizza restaurant we had been wanted to try. (I love Pizza!)  It was a really great weekend.  I was so happy spending time with my husband.  However, with a Large Animal Anatomy test on Wednesday there should have at least 4-8 hours a day of studying thrown in there.   Oops.

Vet school is exhausting.  I used to work 80 hours a week in a high stress situation, late into the night, weekends.  School has the same stress and the same hours, but in contrast, it never quits - there is never a moment of mental peace. You need to study every free minute and sleep less to get A’s. Every time you choose to attend a family event, go to the gym, or see a friend, you do so knowing that you are sacrificing GPA points for that experience.  I don’t want to live the next 3.5 years wondering where my life went, so sometimes you just have to have a great weekend.

First Vet School Conference!

This weekend marked my first veterinary Conference!  Some parts were boring, but all in all, I think it was a worthwhile experience.  I feel pretty energized and reinvigorated about the fact that in 4 years, no, make that 3.5 years, I get to be a veterinarian!

The Veterinary Business Management Association (VBMA) conference was held in Orlando, Florida at the North American Veterinary Conference. As someone who wants to one day own her own small animal clinic long term and is concerned with finding great job after graduation, this conference was just right for me.  I made several great contacts, got some good resources, and learned about some techniques to enhance my networking skills. I am currently a first year representative in the VBMA at my school, but I think I would like to get more involved next year.

Non-educational highlights included: getting to have dinner with three amazing Florida friends on Saturday night at Bahama Breeze and getting to go to Disney’s Magic Kingdom on Sunday night with my conference roommates.  You never get too old for Space Mountain.  Both nights were a blast.  I am now really looking forward to the conference I am headed to in March.

One semester over...

Veterinary School is hard.  No matter what you have done before, no matter how hard you have worked, it's different.

I just finished my first semester of my first year, and it was pretty awful.  My grades were good but mentally and physically I was a mess at the end of the semester.  I think this is partly because of the nature of the beast (vet school), partly because of events and circumstances not within my control (i.e. death of someone dear to me and the economy).

My priorities are pretty different from most of my classmates:  1 - hubby, 2 - health, 3 - grades.  At the end of last semester these were a mess - I was completely off balance.  But now is time for a new semester. And a renewing of those original goals.

Priority 1:  Hubby

I have chosen to keep husband first, because I think marriages take commitment and a prioritization of your spouse as the most important person on your life, other than yourself.  I take that commitment seriously.  I have heard stories of marriages crumbling under the weight of vet school, and I am willing to work to make sure that is not me.  My husband is equally committed, and we have a really strong relationship.  (I will tell you more about him later.)

Priority 2: Health

The first step in that was joining this 28 day bootcamp online at Sparkpeople.com.  It is a commitment to 30 minutes of cardio 5 days a week and 70 minutes of toning videos each week.  I am 14 days in, so 14 to go.  I am also committing to return to my pre vet school eating habits.  I was super healthy before I got here, and last semester much of my food started to come from boxes, which I was pretty unhappy about.  Cooking in aforementioned my living situation is hard, but I have to commit.  Also, I need to sleep more. 

Priority 3: Grades

This will pretty much take every other minute  (and the remnants of sanity) that I have...

My goal is not the adhere to this order everyday, but to start of creating a more balanced life overall.

Stay Tuned...