Vet Student at Košice

 I need a new sentence to start these posts with - I can't keep saying "what a day!". Today I had my first test of the semester - a mini test in pharmacology. Normally we'd have one every week, just a 15 minute thing to test our knowledge from the previous week. My housemate and I went to campus early to review everything. After that was done, we learnt some stuff about local anaesthetics - they work by blocking the Na channel in nerves, so action potentials can't be generated, so no nerve transmission occurs. At the end of the lesson, I got to put some eye drops into a rabbit and see how the eye reflexes (palpebral, corneal and pupillary) were affected. My first patient of the semester After pharmacology, we had anaesthesia. This was such a cool lesson, because I got to practice nerve blocks in a cadaver. I did a retrobulbar, auriculopalpebral, rostral maxillary, caudal maxillary, and an epidural. Obviously it's very different doing this in a cadaver compared...

Today was another pretty busy day. Maybe I'm just trying to find excuses to use the trams, but I had an appointment with the Foreign Police to get temporary residency. This was actually my second time going there, as my bank statement wasn't quite what they wanted the first time. This time, however, all the paperwork was in order, and I spent the best part of 2 hours waiting to get my photo and fingerprints taken. Now all I need to do is get a health check, and I will get my card! It'll be a real relief when I've got this sorted. It really was a stressful few hours, as the police officers didn't speak much English, and I don't speak much Slovak!  Later on I will write a post about the whole procedure, as I would have really appreciated a step-by-step guide on how to get the temporary residency! Because the waiting took so long, I missed all of my Food Hygiene practical (it's online, and I had told the teacher I wouldn't be there. It's still annoying ...

Today I observed my first two surgeries at school - this is a requirement for my general surgery and anaesthesia course. We were there to learn about anaesthesia, and observe the procedures. I was so nervous this morning, I couldn't say why, but I was worried I'd have to call and cancel because I felt so sick.  The first surgery was a left eye enucleation in an 11 year old, entire male Yorkshire terrier. He had a history of glaucoma, which was left untreated and developed into uveitis (inflammation of the middle layer of the eye). Several courses of treatment later, the eye was ulcerated and painful, so the owner agreed to take it out.  The surgery was incredibly fast (about 20 minutes, using the transconjunctival approach). It was very interesting to see a retrobulbar block used, as I have very little experience with opthalmology. The dog recovered well, and was sent home with NSAIDs and antibiotic eye drops. At the end, the surgeon mentioned that there was a splenectomy happ...

I spent another two weeks at my local vets, and saw lots of stuff! I gave lots of vaccines, held lots of puppies and kittens, and even took some blood from a chihuahua! I'm so grateful for the time, and I made some good contacts for when I graduate! I hope to come back again, maybe in winter break or next summer. A friend and I have got an apartment for this year, it's a relief to not be going back into dorms! Maybe I'll move back in later, but only if I can get a single room! We got a really good deal, and I spoke to the girl who lived there before so I know that it's a legitimate place.  I've spent the last couple of weeks just hanging out and relaxing. I've managed to keep up with my Anki cards for the whole summer, but I regret not studying more. I'm worried about starting the new term - we start some of the hardest subjects this year. Brexit has made studying in the EU much harder than it needs to be, so I've got to sort out residency stuff which is...

After some weeks of resting and learning, I'm back in practice! For the next 3 weeks I'm working at my local mixed vets.  Today was my first day there and I think it went ok! Embarassingly, I got a bit dizzy during the first spay, but I was ok after that. After that, there was a castrate, and then a dog dental. The dental was a little stressful because the dog wasn't breathing after induction. After some more medications (reversing the premed), the dog got it together and the procedure went on as normal.  After that, I had a bit of lunch then went out to a farm to watch some TB testing. I've not actually seen a TB test before, so that was really interesting. Two tuberculin types ( M. bovis and M. avium ) are injected into the neck, after the initial thickness of the skin has been measured. After 4 days the skin thickness is remeasured, and compared. If the site injected with M. bovis is thicker than the site injected with M. avium by more than 4mm, then the animal is ...

I've talked a little about how difficult vet school is, and I'm not the only one who will say that. There is an unbelieveable amount of information that is necessary to know. The best piece of advice I could give a prospective vet students is "yes, you need to know that".  Me and my dad have spent ages learning about learning. Ali Abdaal on YouTube has made a few really helpful videos about studying at med school, although some of his more recent videos aren't so helpful. One of the most amazing tools that we came across is the flashcard app Anki. Honestly life changing. I always tried to make flashcards to revise from before, but I never found them very helpful. Being able to make cards really quickly and easily on my laptop has been a gamechanger. The image occlusion tool and being able to put screenshots in really ups the usefulness.    I've come back to this post from the future - as of 24/10/2022, I've been using Anki solidly for 711 days. It will be ...

     It has been 285 days since I started vet school. I finished my first year a couple of weeks ago, and I have been catching up on sleep, TV and books ever since.       I finished the year with a pretty good GPA (1.16, or 3.68 in American terms). I worked harder than I thought I could but I still feel like an imposter. Hopefully that feeling will go away, the more I learn. Some of my coursemates have organised clinical rotations and work experience for the holiday, but I haven't yet. I'm hoping to get a job at the Seal Sanctuary for a couple of weeks, as this is really the only "free" summer I'll have until the end of vet school.      I found the list of subjects I have to do next year. It's a little daunting, with subjects like parasitology, toxicology, and pharmacology but I hope I'll manage. There are 12 weeks between now and the start of semester 3 , so plenty of time to get a head start on some topics.      In ...