They Say It's Hard, But Never Say It's Fun

The first week before vet school was actually vet school 'orientation'. They call it COLE- Cougar Orientation and Leadership Experience. We had lots of fun games, communication lectures and team building exercises. I had a ton of fun and really learned a lot. We were 'camping' (sleeping in cabins is really not camping) on the Spokane River in Post Falls. It was great to help us get to know each other, all 99 of us first year vet students. Plus second and third year students were there as our mentors and talking to them really helped to settle my nerves.

Then there is this first week of actual school. My class list is as follows:

Small Animal Gross Anatomy
Microscopic Anatomy
Cell Physiology
Principles of Surgery
Animals, Society and Vets (Continuation of COLE through our 3rd)
Animal Handling and Ag. Animal Orientation

Electives:
International Vet Medicine
Colic Team

So far in anatomy we have studied the bones of the thoracic (front) limb. Today we started dissecting our cadavers. We are working on learning the origin and insertion of the muscles of the thoracic limb.

In micro anatomy lab we spend our time looking under a microscope. This week we have been looking for parts of the cell in different tissues.

Cell physiology has no lab. In class we are learning about DNA/RNA replication, transcription, translation, etc.

Principles of surgery is once a week with a lab every other week. I have not had my lab yet, but my classmates have said the lab was fun working on gowning up while keeping sterile, suturing and learning the various instruments.

Animals, society and vets is an interesting class. It is kind of a break from all the intense vet learning and focusing on important topics in veterinary medicine and working on our communication skills. We start various readings next week.

Animal handling and Ag. animal orientation sounds like great fun. We basically had an introduction to what the class is and we start labs next week. We have labs within the various clinical areas such as Small Animal, Equine, Ag animal and veterinary teaching hospital orientation. We get oriented to the hospital because we have badges which allow us total access to all the buildings of the vet school.

Today I watched a student put a catheter in a calf, nothing new for me to see, but good to see how they do things differently around here.

The International Vet Med class is pretty fun. It is during our lunch hour so we pretty much listen to a lecture on opportunities abroad or Animal-Human issues abroad while eating lunch.

Tomorrow I have colic team for my lunch elective. We will see what that entails. I hope we do have some colic cases this semester so I can learn from them, but then again any colic cases is a bad thing because someone has to go through that experience with their horse.

Tomorrow is also the club BBQ where I can sign up for clubs and see just how busy I can be this semester!

All in all I'm enjoying every minute I am here. A little sleep deprived, but not too much yet. Once I get my schedule down I will be working hard but loving it!