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...

    Full disclaimer, this happened several weeks ago, I am only just getting around to typing it up. So for part of my course, we have to complete a certain amount of hours of "extra-mural studies" in practice. At the end of my 2nd year, we only had to do 80 hours so I booked 2 weeks in a first opinion and referral practice in Belfast. My friend lives and works at the place, so I stayed with her and we did some touristy things around Ireland, like going to see the Giant's Causeway. In my first week at the practice, I mostly just observed, trying to remember everyone's names and what I'd learnt in the last year. The practice focussed a lot on neurology and orthopaedics, so I observed and did several neurological exams.  I got to practice loads of clinical skills like blood draws and placing IV catheters. We missed out of doing most of that in first year because of covid. Because my friend is a nurse there, I had a bit of an "in", and got to do ...

It's getting to the point where almost everything is in place, ready for me to move to an entirely new country!  Because there's currently a pandemic going on in the world, I have to make more considerations in my travel; we have to self isolate for 5 days when we arrive in Kosice, and I believe that currently flights from the UK aren't going directly to Slovakia. A few of us have made a group and will hopefully travelling together, which should make things less stressful!  Secondly, we have to register for a test when we get there, and also register with the proper authorities which is a bit nerve-wracking but it's so cool that I have this opportunity.  I've started packing my suitcase (Rob bought a massive, bright yellow suitcase for when he went to San Jose last year).