So I had planned on blogging after every rotation. Well, this being my 1st week into third rotation that obviously isn't happening. So I'll start from first rotation.
Food animal
Crazy, busy, learned a LOT, built some relationships with classmates I hadn't interacted with that much, and had so much fun. Some of my case highlights were a goat kid with congenital deformities, copper toxicity, llama injuries, pig hernia surgery, cow orthopedic surgery, goat c section, goat c section, goat c section (did I mention goat c section?), Lameness and foot trims on cows, and helping with other's cases. It has definitely been my favorite rotation so far and I absolutely loved my rotation mates. We worked our butts off and it was pretty structured, but the organization of the clinicians and house officers made things run smoothly which was nice.
Equine preceptor rotation 2
I was extremely nervous but very excited to leave the hospital for a bit. I think the nicest part was not being in charge of patients and just being done once I left for the day. One of my best friends is a tech there so it was super awesome getting to spend 3 weeks with her. I ended up staying with her at her parents house and it felt like good old times like in middle and high school having sleepovers. The doctors were pretty great to work with, but there wasn't a ton of case diversity. I saw a billion lamenesses (mostly mildly visible ones on high dollar horses), a few leg injuries, a couple medically managed colics, a couple foals with diarrhea, and a few mares that were eventually AI'd after ultrasound and syncing. It really showed me that I don't want to do exclusively equine. I'm not sure I could stand the monotony. On my last day, the head doctor called me into his office. They ended up giving me a thank you card and a check for working so hard and that they thought I was really knowledgeable for it only being my second rotation and invited me back any time I wanted. It felt so nice to actually be appreciated for hard work. It definitely made it hard to go back to the hospital.
Equine surgery rotation 3
I've been in this rotation a week. My only case so far was a horse that had been injured in the tornados early May and was just waiting for the owner to pick up. We did get to see a colic surgery already. It was intense. I'm so far not a fan of this rotation. I feel like nothing is organized and us as students end up hurrying just to wait around. We do have topic rounds every day but the clinician gets off topic and it ends up taking much longer than it should. I don't mind the rounds, but I feel like we are having to memorize things that only equine specialist would have to know. Maybe it is national board material or something and I'm just being complainy but when they want us to commit to memory non emergency equine specific drug doses I feel like that's a little much. Especially when they have us look up the doses, then tell us it's wrong and this other dose is what you should really use. I'm really glad I had an equine preceptor beforehand because it's helping me answer quite a few questions so I don't feel so stupid. We are on emergency 24 hours if there is a surgery. It's a little nerve racking and I wake up several times a night just checking my phone to make sure I didn't miss a call. Hopefully it gets better and we aren't sitting around so much. Monday we are supposed to be super busy so that'll either be fun or really stressful, but hopefully it goes ok. Well, I'll try to update more often, but don't get your hopes up.