This blog is late. There's no denying it. It should have been done Friday, and as of today it is Sunday. It's not that I'm normally particularly lazy, or that I don't respect the agreements I've made. Honestly I think I'm just a student that have just started a new academic year - and I'm pretty sure I'm more busy than ever before.
Welcome to 3rd year at vet school. It's nothing like the two previous years. No one will explain anything from the beginning. You have to know words like ventral, dextrum and the names of every major artery, muscle and nerve in the body - and don't forget the 200 medical names you learned in pharmacology 2 months ago, those are important too.
It's tough, it's stressing - and it's so much fun so far.
In my 3rd year I'm truly starting to feel like a veterinary student. All my lectures are focused on teaching us everything we need to know, at a much faster pase than ever before. At the moment I have 3 subjects: Basic clinical theory, special pathology and nutrition.
Special pathology. One of the famous five, meaning it's known as one of the five hardest exams you can take at uni. It encompasses, more in-depth, disease and lesions in all cells, tissues, organs and organ systems. It involves theoretical lectures and the practical exercises in the section hall. It's difficult at times to keep a cool head when words you barely understand are flying around you, and you feel like you've stared into a microscope for hours. At the same time it's incredibly exciting, recognizing diseases and their pathology. Plus, getting to actually work with animals is always a huge plus when you're a vet student. We start every single day at 8 o'clock with an hour of pathology - which also means most of us have finally succumbed to a severe coffee addiction.
Basic clinical theory is exactly like it sounds. It's the study of everything that can go wrong in an animal. Yeah, that's quite a lot, we feel that way as well. After you learn everything that could possibly be wrong, the most important thing to take away from this course is POMR. Problem oriented medical record. Which basically means you learn how to approach a completely new patient, and what steps you should take towards diagnose a disease. It's by far my favourite subject so far this year as it feels like being a "proper" vet.
Nutrition kind of speaks for itself. It's knowing everything about what all kinds of animals need to eat to function, grow and produce products for us like milk, meet and even fur.
Most days consists of lectures, with some breaks, every day from 8-16, sometimes we keep going till 5 or even 6. When you come home after 10 hours of lectures and studying I can guarantee you're ready to not look at another book for some time. But then again, when you do get home, you're often ready to relax due to plenty of time for self-studying at uni, so that's a bit benefit - especially if you like me live in a place where there's always someone ready to watch an episode of Game of thrones.
In the end 3rd year so far is panning out to be a tough year. It's no wonder that the majority of my friends are considering a gap year next year. However, 3rd year is also in my opinion so far the most exciting academically so far. Also, I'm lucky, I've got a great job at a small animal clinic where I get to be reminded of why I'm spending 8+ hours every day studying, but I'm also blessed with friends and family that keeps me up and going, and are always there to share a small beer with me when we've for the 100th time repeated the steps for diagnosing yet another disease you haven't properly learned to pronounce.
