Vet Student at Košice

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 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...

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...

This term seems to be making up for the time we spent online - we have 9 practical trips in the next 6 weeks. Mostly to the university farm to work with the cows, but we also have several trips planned to the Košice slaughterhouse. Can't say that I'm thrilled about that, but I know it's an important part of the process.  Today's farm trip was to do salmonellosis testing in calves at the university farm. We had to do a general inspection of the calves, take a TPR, a blood sample and if they had diarrhoea, a fecal sample and a rectal swab. It was a bit chaotic because there were 31 of us - in previous years it's been around 20 people maximum . We split up into 4 groups, and were assigned a section of cows to examine. Eventually we settled into a routine, and we all got to try taking bloods and other samples. I was very happy to hit the vein on two calves as I haven't taken blood from a cow before - not much different to dogs, but the skin is much thicker!   The sa...