My first rotation back was cardiology. I had done a cardiology placement at a referral centre near home. I was hoping some of that knowledge would have stuck with me! Over the week we got to see lots and lots of echocardiograms as well as quite a few ECGs. We had 3 hour tutorial on ECGs so they now look a lot less like just squiggly lines! We also got to listen to many abnormal hearts, so many that we started to lose then sense of what a normal heart sounded like. It was an interesting week overall and I did enjoy it a lot but I don't think that I would want to do it as a speciality.
Our second week was internal medicine. It was a week that I was really looking forward to. In my first degree I took a fourth year course on endocrinology (although it was human) because I love it so much. And the week did not disappoint. We knew it was going to be busy but this took it to a whole new level. We are theoretically done at 5pm in the evenings but not one day did I leave before 5:30 and two days I was there until 7pm. I managed to accumulate many of the cases that had to stay in for workups. At one point I had a collection of spaniels all in hospital! But I didn't mind because this was one of the rotations I wanted to get every ounce of knowledge out of I could. I already plan to pick it as a selected rotation in the second semester. We got to see a variety of cases from the classic chronic vomiting and diarrhea cases to things like immune-mediated polyarthritis and meningitis. It was a very intense week but definitely worth all the stress and studying required.
The third week was dermatology. This week had a completely different feeling than internal medicine. A lot slower a pace. This was a week I was also looking forward to because so much of small animal practice is dermatology. We looked at and analyzed so much skin. We learned how to take many different types of samples and what types of samples to take depending on the presentation. Again I don't think I would want to be a specialist dermatologist but I do appreciate how important it will be to me when in general practice.
My last rotation of the four week block was oncology. I was worried that this week would be really depressing but it was actually quite interesting. Pet oncology is quite different than human oncology. When administering chemotherapy to pets its not given at as high doses. The reason for this is to limit the side effects. But on the flip side, this generally means chemotherapy is not curative (it will put some cancers into remission but many inevitably come back). Pets lives are not as long as humans and the nasty side effects of chemo are not worth it to only achieve a relatively short amount of time. So a happy middle is tried to be reached where the dose will knock back the cancer to give the pet more time to live a happy life and have very minimal if any side effects. The one thing that did depress me was seeing the number of Golden Retrievers come in. I adore Goldens (as I'm sure you know from me spamming you with pictures of mine) but they are a pure bred dog and as such come with problems. And cancer is one of them. I'm not sure whether I would put my dogs through chemotherapy, I'm very torn and I think it would depend on the circumstances. And it is an incredibly personal decision. Hopefully I will never have to make the decision like the clients bringing their pets into oncology have, but I realize it is a very real possibility as my pups get older. The other thing that I enjoyed about oncology was the people. So far on my rotations all the staff have been lovely but you could tell the oncology team really got along and it made it very nice for the students. At the end of the week I got very flattering feedback which was a nice way to end a rotation I was hesitant about.
So enough talk for a bit. How about some more pictures?? (You knew that had to be coming didn't you!). August is the time when all the tourists come to town. And I mean all the tourists. Walking anywhere becomes a nightmare. But with the tourists comes the benefits of tons of shows and the Tattoo. I think I will leave my time at the actual Tattoo until next post but I went out on countless nights to try and take picture of the fireworks from the Tattoo. So here is a collection of my attempts. Taking photos was a bit of weird experience. Wherever I went there were always other photographers there and they all seemed to know each other. They would ask me what my settings were and then comment on them. It was a very odd experience. And then I would see them in different places and they would say "Did I see you here on x day?". As the month went on my pictures improved and the final night I got a bunch of pictures I was very pleased with. Next post I will include my time actually watching the Tattoo and a fringe comedy show and onto my next block of rotations!
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| Fireworks from the Matinee Show |
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| Waiting at the Vennel for the show to start |
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| From Calton Hill |
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| From Calton Hill |
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| From Salisbury Crags |
