Since I haven't posted about the kitties in awhile...

I just found a home for four of the kittens. The calico pair and the agouti pair are each going to a pair of sister's homes to make some kids very happy for christmas. Now I just need to find homes for Private Peanutbutter Jr, the brown tabby, and Stegosaurous, the momma. Now that her kittens have been weaned for over a month, she's been able to catch up on her weight. The spine that was poking out that earned her name? Gone. She's still a skinny cat, but its nice seeing her at a normal, healthy weight instead of skin and bones (with a belly that was bigger than the rest of her.) I'm really hoping I can find homes for those two before I leave for Colorado on Tuesday.

This is going to take some getting used to

It's actually been kind of chilly here the past few days. I'm a wuss when it comes to being cold, so it being a little drizzly and in the 50's feels cold to me. Until I realized that it's the middle of December, the rosebushes in my back yard are in full bloom, and the neighbor's tree keeps dropping limes in my yard. Meanwhile, back in Colorado, its been snowing off and on the past few days. I'm going to be in for quite the shock here in a few days when I get back to Colorado.

Speaking of quite the shock... I got my grades back from most of my tests last week. That first multiple choice test that I felt pretty good about? Apparently I suck, and I barely passed it. When I went through the test, and looked at my answers, in every single case where I had to guess on a question, I narrowed it down to 2 choices, then promptly picked the wrong one. I plan on doing quite a bit of self-reflection over break, because even though people joke about "Cs get Degrees," I am not happy getting low marks on something that really matters. I'm not sure exactly what, but something's got to change. I know what the problem is, the problem is that I'm used to being able to coast through everything, and I have zero study skills, but I can't get away with that anymore. I need to come up with a viable plan for studying, and stick to it, since I don't want to just be an ok doctor, I want to be a great doctor. If you've got any suggestions, please, post in the comments section.

Shameless Self-Promotion

I was just notified that I was nominated for a blogger's choice award for best animal blogger. If you have a couple minutes, please sign up and vote. I'm totally going to get creamed, since I'm in the same category as icanhascheezburger and cute overload, but can't hurt to try.



Oh, and as of today, I'm 1/8th of the way through vet school!

Almost done with finals!

Its been a long week. Here's how its played out so far:

Tuesday - VBS (veterinary basic sciences) exam 1. This exam covered our first 4 cases, about 140 multiple choice questions. It pretty much covered everything: anatomy, physiology, pathology, microbiology, parasitology , behavior and toxicology. I feel like I did pretty well on it.

Wednesday - Vet issues exam. Relatively stress-free exam.

Thursday - Practical exam. This was 2 hours of parasitology, histology, toxicology, behavior and pathology followed by 2 hours of anatomy and radiology. Unlike midterms, I didn't leave the practical exam feeling like I was going to cry. Always a plus.

Friday - VBS exam 2. Pretty much the same as the first, except covering the last 4 cases of the block. I didn't get to study as much for this one, and left the exam feeling like I had to guess on way too many questions.

Monday - Two exams today. The first was the ACT, or "assessment of critical thinking" exam. Basically, they gave us a case that was similar to some of the cases we had throughout the block, and then we had to pick 2 differentials and write about the pathophysiology of either of the diseases we picked, and how they could be causing the clinical signs and bloodwork values we saw. I was pretty freaked out before this exam, since it's 20% of our grade for the semester, but I left after the exam feeling like I did just fine. A lot of that is thanks to my anatomy tutor, who was wonderful about passing on some great tips for taking it.

After the ACT exam, we had our clinical skills test, which is a series of timed stations that you have to move through. There were drug calculations, epidemiology calculations, and then we had to demonstrate how to do things on stuffed animals or models like blood draws, catheter placement and taping, and a couple other things. Even though it was the easiest test we had all week, it was really nice to get it out of the way.

Tomorrow, I have my Micro/Cellular biology test. If its anything like the midterm, it should be a bunch of multiple choice questions, and a bunch of short answer questions. In theory, it shouldn't be too hard - it tests us over all of the scientific literature we've had to read and summarize all semester. However, its a lot of proteins, hormones and bacteria to keep straight. I'll just have to caffeine up, and power through it.

Speaking of caffeine, after finals, I'm going to try to quit my pepsi habit. Its just too many empty calories, and the caffeine dependence is probably not so good either. So, while I have 2 1/2 weeks of break to wean myself off of getting caffeine withdrawl headaches, I figured I'd give it a go.

And for the heck of it, here's a picture of what I came home to after I finished my clinical skills exam today:





That's right, I have the cutest, weirdest dog in the world.

Is it possible....

That the more I study, the dumber I get? Feels that way.

Two finals down, five exams to go. Tomorrow's our practical exam - 2 hours in the anatomy lab going over physical specimans and radiographs, then 2 hours in the thing lab going over pathology, toxicology, parasitology, and histology. And I can feel my brains leaking out my ears.

Grrrr....

The Wall Street Journal can suck it. They published an article a couple days ago called "Women Doctors Flock to Surprising Specialty"

Their "brilliant" conclusion isn't that women are increasing in many medical fields, and comprise the majority of veterinary graduates because there are more opportunities open to women of my generation than any other before us, or that they might enjoy the science behind medicine, or they feel they want to make a difference in the world. Nope, according the the Wall Street Journal, we're coming to fields like veterinary medicine in droves because we want flexible high paying jobs to help us crank out babies.

Yep. They think that the reason somebody would spend 8 years in school, get in around $200k debt from student loans, and go to the lengths of becoming a professional, just because it makes being a breeder and balancing a job easier. I don't know about you, but I would imagine that being a stay-at-home mom, or working part-time in an office would be a hell of a lot easier than spending 8 years, a crapload of money, and blood sweat and tears, to try to balance kids and a professional career.

Not only is they way they stereotype veterinarians and physicians offensive, but the way they pigeonhole all women into the "must-have-kids" category makes my jaw drop. I would imagine that a much larger percentage of my class (or any population with a post-grad education) has a higher rate of child-free individuals than the general population. It's pretty much a given that the more education women have, the fewer babies they produce. But yet, even though many of us who are working our way towards the veterinary career won't have kids, and those that do are much more likely to stick to one or two, apparently women only think with their uterus.

And then, just because the premise of their article wasn't stereotyping enough, or a big enough middle finger to feminism, they had to make it worse with their headline. Not "more females flock to high paying careers..." or "more doctors chose specialties to accomidate work-life balance." Nope. They had to use the phrase "women doctors." Its condescending. You hear it from clients. "Oh, I'm seeing Dr. X? Is that the 'woman doctor?'" You don't see articles written about how more "men doctors" do one thing or another. Its a phrase that doesn't belong in our lexicon, much less in the headlines of national news sources.

Anyway, probably won't post much (or at all) for the next couple weeks. Today was our last day of class, and I've got finals for the next week and a half.