Can't keep up!

I guess I'm too busy to keep this blog up, but I'll be posting about what I'm doing at school here:
http://ericaswebjournal.blogspot.com/
if you are interested in following what we do in the JJC Vet Tech program.

That blog is kinda my online resume so I can remember and display what I've done so far in hopes for finding future employment as a Tech.

Otherwise, I may post some more summaries once I can catch my breath again. This program is a TON of fun, but it's a TON of work as well. I'm having a blast, though!

Skin tests and radiology equipment tests

Today we did skin scrape tests, cellophane tape tests, and DTM's in small animal lab and in radiology we did some calibration tests for the collimation light, cassette screens, and a light leakage test for the darkroom. Pretty easy, but useful stuff!

We were also tested on putting together and using a Schioetz tonometer. That wasn't hard either, but the piece of equipment is so fragile and small that it's a challenge for some. It looks like it came from the 1600's or something! :-P

Week #8: OMG

Notice I missed a few weeks? Yeah, we had that much going on. Let's see...

Last week we had a quiz and an exam on Monday, then 2 lab practicals on Wednesday, and a quiz on Friday. It was nuts. But, let me try to back-track and get this blog up to speed.

In Week 6 of Large Animal lab we spent another day at the dairy farm, this time with the calves. We drew blood from them, gave them subcutaneous injections, took their temperature, pulse, and respiration rates. My lab partner and I got a calf named "Beans". Here's a pic of me and him:



In Week 7 we lectured instead of having Large Animal Lab, and Week 8 we spent with horses. The horses were owned by various people who brought them in for free blood tests and vaccines, so there was a little more pressure with the owners standing there watching us. My lab partner and I did great, though -we both got our blood draws on our first stick (jugular) and did our IM injections of the vaccines in the neck and rump quickly and without much trouble from the horse. We also each wrapped on of the horse's legs and demonstrated a tail wrap. Afterwards a local vet brought out his portable digital x-ray machine and we took a radiograph of one of the horse's knees (we happened to have a 24 year old gelding with an arthritic knee). I held the cassette for the first exposure (lateral) and was able to see the osteophytes right away when the image came up on the screen. We took another view (cranial/caudal) as well which showed diminished space between the femur and tibia which also pointed to advanced arthritis. The owner was grateful for the radiographs and said she might send us his old ones from 4 years ago to compare. That'd be neat.

In Small Animal Lab we were shown how to do IM injections on dogs and cats and we were given our injection list that we need to complete on our own by December. We have to give subcutaneous and IM injections in the tricep and quadricep on both dogs and cats. I've done 2 so far, both on a cat, so I have a little over a month left to do the other 6.

In Small Animal lecture we've been learning about the diseases that are prevented by routine vaccines as well as heartworm.

In Radiology we radiographed an anesthetized chicken (which we helped put under with gas anesthesia and we recovered it as well). Their heartbeats are super fast! We also radiographed some horse leg bones using an old portable xray machine. It was before we did the real horse, but I can't believe how much nicer the vet's digital one was than ours! Still, I'm sure there are plenty of vets with old machines, so it's definitely a good thing we've seen and can use both kinds.

On Wednesday we got our schedules for next semester. I'll have Tuesday totally off and only one class (Anatomy & Physiology) on Mondays and only one class (Kennel Management) on Thursdays. Wednesdays and Fridays are long days, but I think the schedule will be pretty nice! The Sophomores are warning us that second semester Freshmen year is the hardest, though, so I'm not taking any chances -I'm watching the Anatomy & Physiology lectures from Berkley in what spare time I have to try to get a leg up on the material for next semester.

We also learned that the Sophomores will be spending most of their time in their externships next semester, so we'll be on our own for kennels. We'll pick our teams and day and we'll be expected to run with it. We'll have a new crop of animals next semester, and I guess they usually get about half the number of dogs and cats, so there won't be as much work, but that's good because there will be half the people to do it!

So, this is about mid-term and I'm at an A in all of my classes except Small Animals where I can't seem to break out of the 85% territory. I'm hoping this Lab Practical helped. I felt pretty good about it, but we won't get our grade until Wednesday. Still, I'm very happy with even a B. The Sophomore class went from 40 to 18 I think this semester. We have 3 or 4 people who were dropped from the program last year due to failing Small and/or Large Animals and rumor has it more will be retaking Surgery I and possibly other classes next semester. This program is certainly fast-paced and challenging. I'm very happy I'm doing as well as I am and it's taken a lot more work to keep up these grades in this program than it took me in my previous 2 years in college!

I can't think of much else to say, so I'll end it here and will come back and add more if anything comes to mind. This week's schedule looks much easier, so chances are I'll be able to start posting weekly again after this.

Week #5: Exam stress

Spent all weekend studying for my exam in Pharmacology and it took the whole time to really get to really get everything down. Then we had to sit through Radiology class for 2 hours anticipating the test in Pharmacology (same teacher, same room). When the time came it was clear I over studied although I was among the last students to finish the test because I double-checked all my math. It paid off, though. I got a 98% on it.

Due to all the studying for Pharmacology I had no time to study Large Animals in case there was a quiz Tuesday. I studied as much as I could Monday night, but I was burned out. I went to class on Tuesday knowing I was unprepared, but I was lucky and there was no quiz.

Tuesday afternoon I started studying for a Small Animals exam that was scheduled for Friday. We had 2 or 3 students in our class that should have been Sophomores this year, but failed Small Animals. They and all the current Sophomores all warned us Freshmen that Dr Keller's tests were really hard. In fact the rumor was a bit more than that. They said they were unfairly hard: obscure, and too much work to do in the 50 minutes he'd give you to finish it. Even our Small Animals lab teacher and our Large Animal teacher told us that his tests were really difficult and that "about half of the students fail his first exam". -Yikes!

So, I studied my butt off on Tuesday, went to school on Wednesday and then came home to study some more. I was behind on my reading, but decided to leave that until Thursday since it looked mostly like review. But, on Thursday I found out that one chapter was really in-depth anatomy. So, I spent all day and night on Thursday trying to tackle that until I just had to drag myself to bed and admit defeat.

On Friday I had Kennels class before the test and spent the entire time studying rather than listening to the lecture. We got out early and all the students were stressing about the test while I sat and studied some more. Once the time came to actually take it, however, it turned out not to be all that bad. There were a couple obscure questions, and a section I had trouble with, but I couldn't call it unfair or too long for the 50 minutes given. I'm not sure if it was made easier this year due to all the dropouts last year, but if this trend continues (and I keep putting forth the effort to read and study) I don't see this class being as much of a problem as it seemed before the exam.

On Thursday in Large Animal lab we went out to a dairy farm and as Dr Stein was talking to us about the cows and their enclosure he noticed a calf coming out of a cow across the barn so he ran over, grabbed it's legs and helped pull it out, but I could tell as it was coming out that something seemed off. It wasn't moving. It turned out the cow was pregnant with triplets, which is very rare, and none of the calves survive because there isn't enough room for them. She had had the first 2 that morning, so this was the third one.

After that excitement we got to pet the cows, then we went inside to watch him do a mock surgery and then we got to examine a cow, get a sterile milk sample, do a rectal exam, and get blood from their tails.

In Small Animal lab we did IM and/or subcutaneous injections and we got our injection chart which I really haven't looked over yet with all the exam stuff going on.

This weekend I'll be studying for a Radiology exam on Monday. Next week is Large Animals, then I really hope there's a break because I'm afraid my brain's going to give up or fill up way before this semester's over at this rate!

Pharmacology: Sympathetic Receptors

Here's a drawing I made to help me remember the Sympathetic Receptors for pharmacology class. Click on the image and it'll take you to Flickr so you can see it in larger sizes.

Week #4 -Overwhelmed yet?

My brain was a sponge for the first 3 weeks. I knew half of the material, and the other half was easily absorbed. I think I still know about half of what we're going over, but the absorption rate is way down. It might be psychological, I don't know. All the Sophomores keep asking us Freshmen if we're overwhelmed yet. I keep saying no, though. I know a lot of other Freshmen are feeling it, though. I feel bad for the ones who don't have any experience. I'd be going crazy right now if I was starting from scratch. I guess it also helped that I bought my books right after getting the book list at orientation and then started reading them as I had time. I didn't get even halfway through any of the books, but even having a little bit of a headstart is something.

In Small Animals we just did more physical exam stuff which is getting pretty routine (which is the point) since we have to do weekly exams on our animals with our Sophomores and I've also been doing them on my animals at home and even on the animals I work with at the Animal Shelter that I volunteer doing surgeries for. PE's on anesthetized animals are a lot easier than awake ones! Next week we're doing blood draws in lab.

The sheep left last week (no one dared ask where they were going), so in Large Animals this week we went out to a beef farm in Channahan. The owner was super nice to let us work with his cattle. I'm not sure how many there were -maybe 25-30? We got in the pen with them and learned to herd them. That was actually harder than it normally would be since his cattle are so tame that their flight zone is like 3 feet. To move them you had to get 1-2 feet away, which is scary with such large animals. I was the first one to have to move them, but I did pretty well. As more and more people moved them, though, they started getting bored, so the people who went last had a hard time moving them -glad I was first! After herding them, they showed us into the barn where they had one of the cattle in a squeeze chute. We learned to safely maneuver around the chute, how to put a halter on them, and how to give them pills with a balling gun. It was much easier on the bull than it was with the sheep.

In Radiology we took our first real x-ray of an animals forelimb. Ours came out good as far as brightness goes, but we didn't position the animal correctly. Luckily, we kinda weren't expected to be perfect for our first one, so as long as we could explain what we did wrong we should get all the points.

We have our first exam next week (Monday) in Pharmacology. We're allowed to use one 3x5 notecard of notes for the exam. I haven't even started to think about studying for it yet. I'm falling behind in studying my large animal notes too. There's a lot of information to absorb!

Week #3 -Getting in the swing of things

We got most of our dogs and cats in on Tuesday, so we were able to find the dog or cat we were assigned to and gush about how awesome they are. The downside, though, was that kennel duty started this week. That meant a 4am wake up for me on Wednesday (to get there by 6am) this week and until the end of the semester when the animals are all adopted out (hopefully). I also have kennel duty tomorrow (Saturday) as we all rotate weekends as well (the schedules were posted the first week so we know in advance which days we work).

In Small Animals we went over how to do physical exams and got to practice on one of the animals. We also practiced restraint techniques.

In Large Animals we finished up our blood draws and did subcutaneous shots on the sheep.

In Radiology we did our first xray of our protective equipment to check for any cracks or holes in the lead that'd cause them to fail. That went well enough.

My 3-ring binder thing is working much better than the notebook and folder plan that I started with. The pace of handouts is steady and plentiful, so it should be interesting.

Another change in plans was with my flashcards. In the past I've used a program called StudyDroid on my phone where I entered the information in the StudyDroid website and then I could study them on my phone, but the pace is hard to keep up with and every class is cumulative. We've already had quizes that included things from past quizes, so having individual flashcards on my phone or on notecards is a little overwhelming. Instead, I'm using a regular word processor to write out questions on one document and the answers on another and studying from that. Every day after school I do my questions and answers for the next day's class and study them all night and all morning the next day. So far I've done well on each quiz with this method, and I figure I'll have all those questions to give myself a practice exam when our first exams come up (2 weeks from now).

Week #2

The handouts for each class is continuing, so my plan is to switch from a notebook for each class plus an expanding folder to hold all my course handouts to a 3-ring binder for each class. So far Large Animals has the most handouts, so I bought a 1.5 inch binder for that one. I plan on taking notes on the PowerPoint slide handouts starting next week rather than in notebooks -it's just too much duplication using a notebook.

Dogs and cats come in next week. Barn duty is easy, it only takes 15 minutes or so -you just schedule a time with the person you are assigned to work with and clean out the automatic waterer and feed the grain and hay and you're done. No bedding changes or anything.

We're learning a lot of anatomy terms for external parts and bones for dogs/cats and then also for sheep/cattle. Having some familiarity with the human skeletal system helps, but the differences and external anatomy is just all memorization.

In Large Animals only half of us got to do blood draws and subcutaneous injections on the sheep because they are only allowed to be used once for each injection or blood draw location per week. So, I let my partner do the blood draw since she had never done one before. She was super nervous because the entire class would huddle around to watch each person do their draw, but she ended up getting it on the first try so good for her! Aside from that we each took their temperatures, tried getting a heart rate (I do heart rates on dogs regularly, but sheep are much harder!), and a respiratory rate.

Week #1

We got course syllabuses for all of our classes and found out that many times exams for several classes fall in the same week -so it's clear this program won't be easy. Kennel and barn duty schedules were posted although the dogs and cats won't come in for a few weeks, so until then we won't have to come in early to do that. Many students are coming in from far away -Chicago, Schaumburg, even Champaign! So, even though I'm coming from Aurora, I don't feel like I have the right to complain ...too much.

The school has sheep in. We got to halter them and give them fake pills with a balling gun. It wasn't all that easy! Dr Stein put a tube down one sheep's throat and let us smell the gas from it's rumen. It was pretty noxious. The rest was just anatomy, but we were told that next week we'd be drawing blood on them. It'll be the first blood draw for most of the students in my lab group. It's kinda nice because their jugular vein is so big. My first blood draw was a dog's front leg, so it was a much smaller target.

Since we don't have dogs and cats yet, we haven't done much hands-on stuff although we did inject some expired FeLV vaccines into oranges for practice. I've given injections before, so it was a little redundant, but many of the other students in class have only the 100 hours of experience shadowing that's required for entry into the program, so it was good practice for them.

Most teachers are giving us a lot of hand-outs. I'm not sure if that will continue, but if it does I have a feeling my little folder won't hold it all. We're being given printouts of the PowerPoint slides used in class with room to take notes, so if that continues I'm not sure I'll need to continue bringing notebooks. ...we'll see.