First year, especially first semester, can be frustrating because you touch very few live animals. You spend your time in the lecture hall and with dead animals in anatomy lab. Most of your classroom learning is far from clinical… sometimes it seems like all anyone ever talks about is immunoglobulin and prostaglandin – 2 words I have never heard in a clinic.
There are a few ways you do get to be around animals (more than just briefly) in your first year. By joining a treatment crew, participating in wet labs, and in the physical diagnosis class you get these rare opportunities to “stoke to fire” and remind yourself why you are here in the first place. I think the people who struggle the most in their first year are those that decided to be veterinarians after being hands on in the clinic or barn and realizing they were good at this stuff. I count myself in this group. Now, don’t get me wrong, we are all smart. Everyone here is. You can’t get in if you are not. But having your strength area be hands on stuff is a detriment right now, but I am hanging onto the belief that hopefully it will balance out sooner rather than later.
This also goes back to that “feeling like you are good at something” idea that I mentioned on other posts. Hands-on experiences remind me, that I am good at this – and will be good at it in the future. Sometimes you just need that.
Which brings me to the thought at hand. Our first physical diagnosis lab, our first official chance to actually work with animals was today. Yup, today as in the end of February. My group got to go out to a farm and play with (and learn from) some beautiful cows. I just wanted to hug them with their feminine long eyelashes and sweet faces. I don’t think I could ever be a large animal vet, because I am not a fan of horses (as a doctor, not as an animal in general), but man, cows are cool! I think they liked me too ;).
We learned about the bovine physical exam and practiced it. We felt for lymph nodes, examined the mouth, and auscultated the chest to give a few examples. We also got to do a few other things like removing stitches and passing a freck speculum. That was an experience. In general cows don't enjoy have a speculum shoved down their throats (I don't blame them) and they tend to block you with their teeth. While I was trying, they cow I was working on got the idea to lick me. If you can imagine, as I was holding the head under my arm it the cow's mouth right next to my chest. Yup, that's right. I was so glad to be wearing enough layers that only my fleece got wet and I just felt jostled around instead of violated J. Never fear, like a good little veterinarian, I did not let it stop me and did indeed get the speculum passed.
They also had two calves out for us to examine. They were pretty much the cutest, sweetest things ever. You could only get one of them to stay still by letting it suck your fingers (like an udder). So we passed off being the "udder" and examiner. The weather was beautiful and the instructors few nice. Overall, it was pretty awesome experience (even if I did get lost twice on the way to the farm L).
I realized that I just talked about wet labs again and still haven’t explained it. Soon, I promise.
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