I'm back!

Short of apologising profusely for my prolonged absence, I can only really explain things by saying that I have been hella-busy. I've just started my fourth week of term, seventh term of university and third year at vet school and things never really seem to get any quieter. (Although I do secretly like it that way). 

Being on 'the Guild' this year means that I'm part of the branch of the students' union for my university, and although I was last year too I have a lot more responsibility to deal with this year. My role is the 'Senior ENTs Officer' for the campus putting me in charge of an ENTs committee responsible for organising a lot of on campus events throughout the year, including big events such as the recent freshers' week. We do all get on really well though, almost like a slightly dysfunctional family - the photo above is all of us at our training session that we attended the week before freshers' week.

It all went surprisingly well though! There were very few hiccups and we actually managed to get some of the highest attended events my campus has ever seen - particularly at the Rocky Horror Finale Party on the Friday night of week one. Some of the costumes I saw people in during the night have truly left a mark on my brain but they were also extremely impressive! Our campus never fails to pull out all the stops when it comes to fancy dress, especially cross-dressing... Unfortunately the photo below isn't of any of my cross-dressing friends, but it is a photo of some of us pre-American House Party on the Tuesday, making sure the photo booth is definitely in order before everyone arrived!

After that came Rumble in the Jungle on the 4th of October, another hugely attended event with some equally impressive fancy dress choices! Finally, on Friday evening we had our first formal dinner ('dining in') of the year, the Masquerade Ball. Although termed a 'ball' it's really just a slightly posh sit down meal with a lot of rowdy students drinking copious amounts of wine. Never a bad thing in my opinion. But as usual, it was an eventful evening, with much to be recounted in the hungover haze of the next day. (See below: My usual drunken dining-in selfie)

Meanwhile, I've supposedly been a third year vet student alongside organising the above. What does third year mean for me?

The dreaded Research Project.

You really dive into the deep end of the pool with your dissertation on my course, as other than writing a literature review in second year, we really haven't done any scientific writing or research before this point. My title for my project at the moment is: 'A retrospective morphometric study of the canine spinal cord using MRI' - what?

I'm basically using a large data bank of MRI images in dogs to pin-point dimensions that the spinal cord should be in 'normal' individuals. It sounded fairly simple at first, but the further you dive in, the more you realise you've come a lot further from the surface than you thought and there's a lot of different elements of work that need doing for it. 

I am getting through it though. Today I finished a first draft of my literature review and sent it to my supervisor. He's going to let me know what he thinks of it tomorrow - fingers crossed he doesn't completely rip it to shreds!

So I'm back at University now...

Summer has definitely gone painfully quickly! 

I'll do a post at some point soon about some of my zoo experiences as I really did have a fantastic time there. It's definitenly confirmed my desire to work as a qualified zoo vet in one way or another when I'm eventually qualified.

In the mean time it's freshers' week on the 22nd of September and this year I'm running the events committee as part of the students' union on my campus. This basically means I have a lot of events that need planning and running for that week, as well as helping out with moving new students into halls and other welcome events during the week. I helped out last year too as part of a more minor role and the main thing I remember is that a rather large amount of coffee was consumed.

The main two student night events I'm doing this year are an American-themed house party night for the returners and then a Rocky Horror Picture Show night as the finale night for the week which is going to be HUGE. I'm even getting some amateur actors in on the night to greet people as they drunkenly arrive in some of the various character roles from the film. 

Deep breath. (I'm sure it'll be fine)

In the mean time though - in case I'm completely absent for the next few weeks, you'll at least know why!

Starting my zoo placement tomorrow!

Really quite excited about it now. 

Although the prospect of a very early start after 2 weeks of lazy holiday time is slightly daunting, I'm sure once I get there it'll be as fun as my last placement. It's called Africa Alive and is the sister zoo of Banham, where I previously did a 2 week placement before applying to vet school. During that placement I got to experience a different section of the zoo every day I was there and it was brilliant - this time the animals at the zoo are almost all African species so it's really right up my street. 

Last non-clinical placement too! Slightly daunting, but it does mean the next placement I embark upon after this will be one where I might actually be expected to know things by the vets at the practice, which is rather terrifying. Let the fun begin. 

For any UK based vet students, or those with any sort of interest in veterinary medicine, I'd definitely recommend watching the first episode of BBC's new documentary. Although it doesn't really show any of what the first four years of vet school are like, from what I know it seems a very accurate representation of what final year rotations/placements might be like.

Answer: Terrifying

This programme genuinely made me feel panicked just watching it. How we can be expected to know all of this by final year is astounding, but I guess that just goes to show how difficult vet school really is. 

Another lovely snippet from my dairy adventures last week - a freshly calved heifer with the second of her two twins. The first was actually born out in the field and we had to quickly get her and the calf home in the trailer before she had the second. (All were absolutely fine, don't worry)

6 Things I've learnt about cows

So I’ve just finished two weeks of intensive days spent on a dairy farm as part of my EMS (extra-mural studies) for vet school. This very nearly brings to a close my 12 weeks of pre-clinical placements, after which I can actually start seeing practice with qualified veterinary surgeons again. My only remaining placement begins at the end of the month and will find me spending 2 weeks at a zoo near where I live discovering (hopefully) lots of exciting things about exotic and unusual species.

1. Cows behave in almost identical manners to my two pet cats, just on a much larger scale. They will be constantly curious, affectionate and hungry whilst the whole time trying to maintain the appearance that they are doing none of those things

2. There’s actually a very complicated hierarchy within every group of cows with each cow knowing its own individual ranking. If you introduce even one new cow into the group they will all proceed to begin fighting to ascertain where they all now stand within the newly changed hierarchy

3. Cows will produce less milk after they have been out grazing during the day than they would after spending time in cubicles/stalls with only a feed ration to chew on

4. Some cows can produce over 100 tonnes of milk during their productive lifetime. (This an incomprehensible amount of milk… Isn’t that incredible?!)

5. Cows have no front teeth on the top of their mouths, only molars at the back… (Although I knew this, I still find it really strange when feeling around inside a cow’s mouth to find no incisors at all on the roof of the mouth)

6. Never underestimate how prickly the tongue of an adult cow is! The lack of teeth means they use the spines on their tongues to aid in picking up their food. It’s an adorably pleasant feeling when a calf is repeatedly trying to lick you, but once it becomes an adult cow that’s trying to eat your arm, the spines have become decidedly more painful on your skin

I actually had a really fun two weeks though, even if the hours were a little tiring! I was milking twice a day at 6.30am and then again at 4.30pm with quite a lot of jobs needing doing inbetween those times, but because I'd never actually spent any time on a dairy farm before every single day was interesting and I really learnt a lot from it. The exciting thing now though is that I actually get to start booking in my clinical placements, the first of which I'll have a christmas. Finally it's starting to feel like I'm actually on my way to becoming a vet!