Vet Student at Košice

Everybody says "spaying and neutering aren't day one competencies", however, I do like to be prepared - so I booked a week at a spay and neuter clinic in Spain. The clinic is run by a very nice man, Wayne, who retired to Spain 20 years ago. Not one to settle down, and concious of the many lost and stray animals around Spain, he set up the neuter clinic to help learning and newly graduated vets to improve their surgical skills. We also get to practice putting in catheters and intubating animals, which is a good skill to have too. This was another thing that I sorted out about a year ago, when I was still a bit unsure if I really liked surgery or not. I've watched a lot of surgeries, I'm not squicked by the blood or anything, but as time has gone on, I realised that I much prefer the medical side of things. However, it wasn't cheap to visit, and I'm going to have to do surgery at some point, so I might as well learn in a relatively controlled environment.  O...

Even though I know I get terribly homesick, I keep booking placements really far away from home. This time, I'm in the midlands.  My first day was a little slow - there were 3 inpatients, a chameleon, a ferret and a pigeon. The chameleon needed a partial tail amputation that took all of 5 minutes, the ferret had an ultrasound revealing a very advanced (likely) cancerous process, and was sent home on steroids. That was a particularly interesting ultrasound because he also had a very abnormal kidney - so abnormal that to begin with the vet thought it was the gallbladder. The pigeon is an racing pigeon who had become lost a year ago, but was caught by a cat that pulled some of his primary feathers out so he couldn't fly. This is apparently quite a common occurrence here, and one of the vets has a colony of released ex-racing pigeons living nearby.  I followed some consults - several rabbits, guinea pigs, a hamster, a gerbil and a tortoise. The sad thing about exotic animals is th...

I had my first state exam today - Contagious Diseases. When I tell you I was dreading this, that does not even cover it.  I studied so much for this exam. I don't particularly like thinking about contagious diseases, as I'm a bit of a hypochondriac. I was doing minimum 6 hours a day reading, doing ankis, watching videos, talking about the diseases. Any possible way to study for this exam, I was doing it.  There are 39 questions about various bacterial, viral and parasitic diseases. Most of the questions are ok, diseases that I know about and don't mind. But there were a few questions that I really, really, really did not want. In particular the question about hemorrhagic fevers. Guess which question I pulled?  To make things worse, the professor on the panel studies hemorrhagic fevers, and is a bit of an expert in the area. I couldn't remember the big disease of veterinary importance (Rift Valley Fever), and could only remember some stuff about ebola and hanta fever. I...

In my first year, I emailed my year tutor asking about our thesis. I had only been studying veterinary medicine for 2 months at the time of emailing him, but I already had a question I wanted to investigate. He emailed back, suggesting a supervisor for me. I didn't get a response until my second year, but my idea was accepted, and I began to work on my thesis.  I wanted to investigate if there was a link between the colour of a cats' fur and the incidence of Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disorders (FLUTD). This topic is of particular importance to me, as two of my cats have suffered from FLUTD.  I will be honest, I didn't work too much on my thesis for the first year. A little bit of literature review, a bit of thinking about how to design my study. I was very preoccupied at the time studying for the 3P's (Pharmacology, Propedeutics, and Parasitology).  When I started 5th year, I knew things had to get serious. I needed to start collecting my data, but my literature review...

Monday Monday is always a brutal day to start the week on - a 7:15 wake up for diagnostic pathology, immediately into diseases of poultry, and finishing the morning with internal diseases of small animals. These lectures are normally very interesting, but my brain doesn't turn on until much later in the day.  After a short lunch break, I head into uni for my poultry practical. It was a pretty rough one today (they normally are anyway, we do a necropsy of a chicken each week, and if you've smelt chickens and death, you can imagine how bad it smells). We were talking about embryo development and hatching eggs today, then we opened up some eggs - one unfertilised (from Tesco), and 2 that had embryos in them. One of them was already dead, but the other one wasn't yet. It was quite upsetting to see a 15 day old embryo die, especially as some of my classmates were prodding and pulling at it. I know it's "just a chick", and thousands of chicks die every day, but it w...

Wow, I really thought I'd written more! There have been so many trips so far this term. Lots of lab work too, which isn't my favourite, but it is interesting.  Basically everything this term is gearing us up for our Contagious Diseases state at the end of term. I'm a bit scared for it, but I got through Epizoo and it's basically the same thing. I'm more worried about the Food Hygiene state, because there's so much detail needed for every little part of food production.  I've pretty much finished my thesis, I'm waiting for confirmation from my supervisor that I can submit it, and then that's something huge I don't have to think about for a little while. I'm still pretty stressed about it, but as soon as it's submitted I can relax a little. 13 days left until the deadline! There's a student conference that my supervisor said I should present my thesis at. Still in two minds about it, because it's a bit more work (I have to su...

 After a too-short break back at home, I am once again in Košice. The travel here was frustrating, as all the trains were on strike so Rob and I drove up to Stansted. We got there really early, so I spent a few hours waiting around the airport before boarding a very busy flight to a very cold Slovakia!  This term, Monday starts with a few lectures (online for the moment), and then into campus for practicals in diseases of poultry, horses and internal diseases of small animals. It's a pretty long day, starting at 7:15 and ending at 18:00. Top left: the cat that lives in the horse clinic, top right: the hen we examined in poultry, bottom left: the university boar, bottom right: the pig my group examined.  Tuesday also starts with a lecture, and then on alternating weeks, I have to rush into uni for a practical with pigs. It was really interesting - I haven't had much experience with pigs outside of rearing them at home, and I was young when we did that, so I don't remember ...

This exam period started as they all do, with a million credit tests in week 13, and me feeling far too unprepared. I had more oral exams than I've had previously (4), which was a bit nervewracking.  I didn't track all the time I studied this exam period, but this is the majority of it. I sort of fell off the wagon using the Forest app this term, but I will be more diligent with it next term. For some reason, I decided it would be a good idea to try for my andrology exam on the saturday at the end of term, before going home for a couple of weeks. Luckily, my study/sleep alternation worked, and I walked out of the room with an 'A'. My first exam back after my short break was diseases of exotics. I was a bit apprehensive, as I'd heard some things about the teachers asking difficult questions. I try to disregard that sort of talk as much as possible, and there's only really been 1 unpleasant teacher interaction. My method for this exam was rereading a bunch, t...

This is it now, the home stretch!  I have 7 exams this winter semester, 2 of them are online, 1 of them was for my optional course and wasn't so much an "exam" as it was a short presentation and then being given our grades.  So that leaves 4 exams (fish, andrology, exotics, epizoo)- they're all oral exams which is a bit scary, but I've managed to get through them before.  I'm doing my first exam on Saturday the 17th, it's Andrology. 3 questions, 2 from the theory side and 1 from the practical side. I'm cramming it a bit, because it's only a few days away, but I don't think it will be too awful. The teacher is very nice, and as soon as I'm done with my Pathological Anatomy credit, I will be able to focus all my attention on andrology. Then I'm going home for 2 weeks!  16/12/2022: pathological anatomy credit went really well. My teacher had been testing people since 8am, and I was last on the list - I think he just wanted to be done but I...

I completely forgot to write a post for week 10! We're reaching crunch time so I haven't been able to think about much else other than my impending credits tests and exams.  Week 11 was more of the same, just stressing about upcoming credit tests and exams. Most of our practicals have finished by now, and we're just working in theory in most subjects.  I actually got covid this week as well! I was horribly ill on Sunday/Monday - I couldn't stay awake, and I was pretty dizzy with a very stuffed up nose and cough. It took 5 days to feel normal, and 6 to test negative. I'm very relieved it wasn't worse, but it still wasn't a great time to be sick.  2 more weeks of term left, 9 credit tests. I'm doing my first exam in Andrology on Saturday 17th. The teacher was kind enough to give us some dates before the official exam period, and I'm hoping it won't be too bad. Still plenty of time to study, so I should get back into it!

Absolutley nothing happend this week honestly. I had all my same lectures and practicals for Monday to Wednesday. Thursday (17th) is a National Holiday in Slovakia, so we had that off, and then the Rector surprised us with a Rector's day on Friday! Exotics was the most exciting practical that we had - we were talking about lizards and snakes, their most common problems and how to treat them. It was a little distracting because we had 2 bearded dragons to examine, but they were incredibly cute. The snake was very sweet too. I'm almost convinced to get one because of how lovely and smooth they are to touch. I think I prefer cuddlier animals though. Maybe one day! 

Classic Monday - all online, not much to say about it! We had a small powercut in the morning so I missed maybe 10 minutes of a lecture, but nothing too awful.   Tuesday started at 0805 in the Food Inspection room. It's definitely not my favourite subject, but it's also not my least favourite subject. It's just an awful lot of words and definitions and legislature that all sounds pretty much the same. Nothing a few Anki cards can't fix though! Internal diseases was pretty interesting, we were talking about urinalysis and why it's so important. I know most of the stuff because my thesis is on Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease (FLUTD), but it's a good refresher. The vet told us a story of how she diagnosed a portosystemic shunt in a 3 month old Lab puppy just because he had ammonium biruate stones in his urine, and no other symptoms. He was able to have surgery and recover 100%, and never even showed signs of a problem just from one little microscope slide! Abso...

As mentioned in my previous post, I didn't have uni on Monday or Tuesday this week. I spent a bit of time catching up on sleep and housework. On Wednesday, I didn't have to be in uni until 1225, so I went to the library to do some work. The normal room I work in was shut off because there was a book fair for medical textbooks, so I sat on the armchairs and worked on my thesis for a little bit. I also did a lesson in my Slovak A1 course, then it was time to go to ruminants. We examined some calves, then spoke about one of the patients - a cow who came in with a suspected left diplaced abomasum. It turns out she didn't have an LDA, but instead ruminal atony and severe dehydration. She was also 8 months pregnant. She was given aggressive fluid therapy, and she seemed to recover, and then very unexpectedly gave birth to her calf 3 weeks early, with no warning signs. The calf was very small, and died very soon after birth so it's suspected there was some pathological process...

This week was probably the busiest of the semester. Granted, I did make is busier for myself, and I got a little ill towards the end, but I really enjoyed it.  This was my timetable for this week, it's defintely the busiest week I've had so far! Monday was the classic all-online day. We had our first credit test of the semester, in Internal Diseases of Small Animals. This test was foccused on just dermatology, and was online so it wasn't too awful. Several of the questions were similar to past paper questions, which is always a bonus. Monday was also a half-day because they were electing a new Rector of the University. I think our exotics teacher missed the email, because we had that lecture anyway, but only about 10 people showed up! I already wrote about my Tuesday of this week in this blog post - so much happened, it would have made my weekly update gigantic! On Wednesday, I had my final Epizootology field trip. This time we went to the sheep farm to test for mastitis i...

This year, we have to do 30 hours in the ruminant clinic this year. We were all assigned a specific week where we have to do all our hours.  One of the patients We pre-arranged days to meet the vet to get our hours. We'd come in and do TPRs on the patients, and throughout the week there would be specific treatments and things we needed to do, like coprological examinations. We were then assigned a specific patient to write a report about - I chose Izabela the goat.  My goat was scheduled for a mastectomy on Thursday - I got to monitor the anaesthesia for it, which is something that I really enjoy. I only had my stethoscope and a watch to measure everything though. In an ideal world, I'd have all sorts of monitoring equipment, but that's not always practical. We sedated her with Xylazine, then used Ketamine to induce anaesthesia. Both were given IM, and throughout the procedure I would periodically top up the doses. We also gave her ketoprofen. She was given an epidural, usi...

Just a small update on two of the cases from the exotics clinic yesterday that I wrote about yesterday . Chameleon: The chameleon had metabolic bone disease (MBD) from poor husbandry. This is from a calcium deficiency in the diet, and excess phosphorus - she was fed almost exclusively crickets. She had pathological fractures in all her limbs, and was unable to lay eggs, leading to her being egg-bound.  She was euthanised.  Rabbit: She died on 26/10, after a sudden seizure. When palpating her abdomen, several masses were present. The vet is going to call the owner and ask for a post-mortem examination. It seems likely that she had sepsis or maybe enterotoxemia (from overgrowth of "bad" bacteria after oral administration of antibiotics that wiped out the physiological flora).  I don't think the vet had a treatment plan for her past treating the abscesses. Since the abscess started at the root of a molar tooth and spread, most of the mandible was destroyed. The teeth couldn...

This Tuesday was so busy!!! I woke up at time-to-leave-o'clock, and had to rush into uni for my first practical, Food Inspection, at 0730. We normally it a bit later in the day, but because of other timetable changes, it got shifted to earlier in the day. It was pretty interesting, we were learning about how food producing places get approved and registered to produce food for human consumption.  We finished a little bit early, so I could go to the pharmacy building at get a much needed coffee. That break didn't last long because my friend and I realised we could go into the Exotics clinic and watch some surgeries. When we got there, they had just started to spay an African Pygmy Hedgehog. She was only around 3 years old, and had masses in her uterus, so it had to come out. The teacher told us about the "007 rule", where you can use 0.07mg/kg medetomidine as a sort of general dose for most animals. Will do a bit of research into that, but interesting nonetheless.  Th...

This week wasn't as busy as others have been. Monday was as long as ever! On Tuesday, I had all the normal practicals, and then a farm trip for Obstetrics and Reproduction. We were doing rectal exams on cows going for slaughter, to feel the anatomical structures. It was much harder than in the bulls, and in the heifers we'd done it in before. Because these cows had had calves, their uteruses were larger and further in than cows. They were also really tall - I was on my tiptoes, using my whole arm, and I couldn't physically reach some parts. As interesting as this was, it was pretty sad - all the cows we were practicing on were destined to the slaughterhouse in the next few days. All of them had some pretty obvious welfare failures, but some of them maybe just weren't producing enough. I know it's how it goes, but it was sad to hear that it didn't matter what we did to them because they were going to be slaughtered anyway. I just think a bit of decency and respec...

The week started as all the others have, with lectures online. I'm finding Mondays pretty tough because it's non-stop lectures from 0715 until 1630. At least I'm at home and can go and make a cup of tea whenever I want, but it's difficult to stay focussed for that long.  We were supposed to go on our Obstetrics trip on Tuesday, but unfortunately the teacher is sick, so we had an online practical instead. It was pretty interesting, about diagnosing pregnancy, but it would have been better to see the ultrasounds in person. We also had a very interesting lecture in Internal Diseases of Small Animals about endocrinopathological causes of skin disease.  On Wednesday, I went on my second epizoo trip. This time we were vaccinating calves against dermatophytoses (ringworm). Ringworm is caused by trichophyton or microsporidium, and these calves are getting ready to be transported to another farm. The vaccination schedule is 3 weeks long, so the next group is going to do their se...

Time is aboslutely flying by at the moment, I'm writing this at the end of week three! It's been a pretty busy week. Mondays are online lecture days, which isn't so bad. I had a meeting with my thesis supervisor in the afternoon and missed a couple of lectures unfortunately, so I have a few to catch up on this weekend. Tuesday was a pretty standard day, nothing to write about really. I spent a lot of time working on my thesis, and preparing the questionnaire that I think is now ready to send out! That's a job for Saturday morning! On Wednesday, I spent the morning in the Exotics Clinic (we have to do 30 hours this term). It was pretty slow, but I saw a guinea pig with urethral stones, a bird for some antibiotics, and an Eagle Owl with a wing injury that was going to get surgery, but the injury was so extensive, the vet didn't know what to do. I think it had surgery later in the week, when the more experienced vet was in. After the clinic, I had Diseases of Ruminants...