Finals start on Monday. My first exam is in Gross Anatomy I, a three-hour-long exam consisting of a laboratory practical exam where they'll have cadavers and skeletons out with tags for identification or questions about clinical applications (i.e. "If I sever this tendon, how will the dog present?"), as well as a small animal and large animal palpation portion where structures on live animals will be tagged for identification or we could be asked to show where to take a pulse, do an IM injection, etc.
Today I woke up at 6:15am, got showered and dressed and headed to the anatomy lab around 7:10am. I studied in the lab with one of the cadaver dogs until 10am and then left to go to a LA palp tutor session (which was massively helpful because she told us specifically which questions ALWAYS get asked on the anatomy final, and to know them). After the tutor session I went home, ate lunch, reviewed my notes for 5 hours and then went back to the lab at 6:30pm for two more hours of review with the cadaver dog and buckets of equine and bovine guts. Now I'm going to make myself a rum and coke and study old material (because everything I've studied up until now is new material, but the final is cumulative) until I pass out.
Tomorrow, rinse and repeat. 13+ hour days? You're a vet student now, get used to it.
Turns out that the stress and long hours are actually preparation for owning your own clinic. Enjoy that thought. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd lots of luck on finals!
Thanks! And I have *no* intention of owning my own clinic! I want to go into lab animal medicine, where I get paid six figures to work a 9-to-5 and leave my work at the door when I leave. Maybe I'll be an associate and hold office hours a couple of days a week in an exotic animal practice, but that's the extent that I want to work in clinical practice.
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