Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Money woes.

Sorry for the big gaps between posts. The wildlife and exotic rotation was crazy busy. I got to do a lot of really cool stuff, though, including two zoo visits where I anesthetized and did physical exams on zoo animals. There was also a big wildlife component, so I got to restrain owls, snip off some necrotic bone and sew up a goose's leg, and put a nasogastric tube in a box turtle.

Right now I'm on small animal critical care. There are three students on the rotation right now (three Rossies of different generations - HOLLA!) and so it's actually pretty laid back and we have a lot of time to round on cases, or common clinical presentations, topics like fluids or specific diseases... It's nice.

One thing I will say about the first clinical semester is that you blow through money fast. Between a deposit on your apartment, furnishing a new apartment from nothing (sofa, bed, dishes, silverware, cleaning supplies, etc.), my parking pass for Illinois was $660, the NAVLE was $570 for the national exam fee plus another $225 for state licensure, $230 for VetPrep NAVLE study materials, etc. almost every Rossie I know that just started clinics this semester is almost broke. Some of them have to live on less than $1,000 for the next month and a half, including rent. It's insane that in clinics we actually get about $2,000 less on our refund check than we did in semesters 1-7.

No comments:

Post a Comment