I've had requests from my sister and mom to describe my classes from this semester. I do have to say it's definitely been the hardest semester already, just because of the higher levels of clinical knowledge I need for the classes, but it's also already been the most interesting semester so far. You'll see from the names of the classes that they are very clinical and specific, ie no more broad classes like Immunology, Anatomy, Histology, etc. I also have the most homework to do for many of them, mainly because several of them require that we read or solve case problems before we come to class. Starting in 2 weeks, we have at least 2-3 tests per week too.
Luckily, April will bring relief with electives and fewer classes. Since I'll only have 3 hours of classes a day during that month, I plan to just bring Cyrus with me if I have him early. We'll see how that pans out...
-Shirin
PS I'm not sure if this will be interesting for all of you, but I know my mom will at least enjoy it (and Mrs Yash will too, since it's also what Beth is taking! :))
So, I guess I'll start with my least favorite class, Toxicology. It's something that has the potential to be interesting and is certainly important: the study of the effect of poisons on the domestic animal. After my nephew Cha Cha has been to the vet several times for ingesting incorrect things (like almonds and grapes), I know it's something I should understand. It's just SO biochemistry oriented, though, that it's not my favorite. It's also a lot like Pharmacology from last semester, that I also really didn't like, despite the fact that learning about drugs is really important. I guess you don't have to like it...you just have to learn it.
OK, so on to Clinical Pathology. I actually like this class a lot because it makes me think about all the stuff the veterinarians were able to figure out from the blood work we'd get done on our sick animals. I feel like being able to tell a whole story about the animals' body just from looking at a few blood values is akin to knowing a foreign language...so I like it! So far we've just focused on red blood cells, but we'll start on white blood cells soon. It's amazing how much there is to know about those little suckers, but it's clearly an important topic since anemia is a common symptom of many diseases. This is one of the topics I'd consider doing a residency in later in my career. Pathologists make a lot of money too.
OK, so I'm not actually taking Endocrinology until the Spring electives, but I am in a class called Polysystemic Diseases and it's taught by an endocrinologist and all the disorders we've learned about so far are endocrine related, so I just put a picture of this book in here. This is also an awesome class, because we go back over diseases we've already learned about in a lot more detail. We also are learning to connect them, since some of them cause other ones or change how others present themselves. So far, we've learned about diabetes mellitus, hyperadrenocorticism (Cushing's), hypadrenocorticism (Addison's), and hyperthyroidism. Our first test is tomorrow. Wish me luck.
So, ophthalmology is one of the more surprising classes I've had. I guess I thought such a specific field wouldn't be too complicated or complex (silly me). Boy, was I wrong. The teacher FLIES through a ridiculous amount of information in each class. I type my notes in there, b/c it's faster than writing (actually, I type all my notes nowadays) and I still can't keep up. We also had a lab yesterday (Beth brought her sweet labrador mix Lulu as our subject) where we had to do a thorough ocular exam on her and it lasted an hour. Poor girl, she was so good for it. We did tests for uveitis, glaucoma, cataracts, ulcers, dry eye, a blocked nasolacrimal duct and much more. It was cool to dilate her pupil and see her optic nerve head at the back of her eye (the retina). I always wondered what those vets were all looking at in there! (I actually don't have this book b/c it's $180). Yikes!
So, we don't actually have a book for Systemic Pathology either. My teacher actually has written huge long chapters for each section we do. Last semester we had General Pathology, where we learned the mechanisms for hemostasis (blood clotting), neoplasia (cancer) and that sort of broad stuff. Now we've graduated to learning diseases system by system. If you don't know what Pathology is, it's the study of diseases (usually of dead things). Pathologists are the people who perform autopsies on people and animals. We just finished the Cardiovascular system and now we've started on the Reproductive system. Interestingly, a "true" hermaphrodite is an animal with one gonad of each type (one testicle, one ovary). Cool, huh?
Hm...anesthesia. I don't love and I don't hate it. It's useful and something I have a lot of experience with from my years as a vet tech. I anesthetized animals all the time, but I was told the drug and dose to use by the doctors. Now I'm learning when and why I used certain drugs. It goes pretty well with my surgery class. The curriculum committee has clearly worked hard to put related classes together. The teacher tells interesting stories of horses bolting awake with weird anesthetic reactions and anesthetists accidentally stabbing themselves with ketamine and tripping on "special K." Interesting stuff.
And, finally, surgery. I LOVE surgery. We haven't done much yet in class or lab, but surgery is one of those arts that can be done really well or really badly. It required creativity and finesse. It's always a little different and can be very rewarding. I learned to tie more knots today and practiced tying the knots on fake blood vessels, which was really fun (imagining I was doing it on real vessels). It's something that is always being done in the clinical setting, and I think I'll really like it.
Well, I hope this helps you appreciate how busy I will be this semester, so none of you get offended if I don't write, call, or visit like normal. It'll be over by April! :)
