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VSN Team

Not going so hot

OK so the experiments that we have been doing are not going as well as I would like.  Alright, not going well at all.  Things that are supposed to be positive are negative and vice versa… and everywhere in between.  And its not unexpected findings, no its even the controls that are behaving oddly. 

But on the bright side, I think I found some new prospects for roommates.  I sent out an email for a first year, but haven’t really gotten a lot of responses.  So I put it out on craigslist.  Let me tell you that not only do you get money launderers but all the weirdoes too.  I’m not joking about the money launderers.  If you don’t believe me, you should try advertising a room on craigslist.  But two people so far, and one more on Tues.  So between them all I think I can find someone. 

So far I’ve lived with two people that were also in vet school.  Both of which entirely different experiences.  The first one was with a girl from my class.  And since that was the only other person that I knew in town, we did everything together at first.  And I really think that we got tired of each other too quickly.  The second was with a Ross student and I we hit it off immediately and are still good friends.  But even though we were both in vet school, she was a 4th year and I was only a 2nd.  So we still had a lot to do that was a part from each other.  So a good piece of advice that I can give anyone going to vet school… don’t do everything with your roommate.  Get a different study partner, anatomy lab partner, etc. 

Been a while

Going to make it a quick post.  I’ve been having trouble with my computer, so I’m sorry that this is a little late.  But a couple of quick things.  Did another spay day today.  I neutered a cat for the first time today.  Did so well that I did 4!  And not just big cats, but smaller juvenile sized ones too! 

Word on the street is that there is a new Mike tiger cub that has been found.  I really want to get a picture with the little tike.  How do I talk Dr Baker into that? 

Work has been kind of slow what with Dr Gaunt being gone.  Still don’t have all the stuff that we need to start the flow cytometry, but the PCRs that we did last week look very promising.  They worked out for the samples that we ran, proving that we could do the technique.  Now we are going to run them on buffy coat samples of our Ehrlichia dog blood. 

And lastly, I have a summer cold, so I am going to bed…

Spay Day

I just got back from spay day.  And its just like it sounds.  We spay and neuter, as well as vaccinate, cats for catch and release programs or for families that can’t afford the care, and all at a significantly reduced cost.  Today we did 62 cats in total.  Most of which were probably feral.  There were a few really sweet guys that definitely were owned.  Its such a great idea and I really wish that we had started this program earlier.  I believe that this is the first year that its been done at LSU, but I suppose its always better to be late than never.  Students get to practice their clinical skills at the same time we are helping the community and the feral cat population.  Most of our supplies that we used are donated, and even our breakfast and lunch was donated and it wasn’t just donuts and pizza, it was nice sandwiches.  It just goes to show you that there are a lot of people that really believe in doing this.

 I started my job in Dr Gaunt’s lab this week.  So far its been pretty interesting.  He is doing research on Ehrlichia canis and Anaplasma Platys.  I didn’t know it until I started the job, but apparently they have found that humans can indeed become infected with E canis, so I can see an even greater importance in the research.  But mostly what I have been doing this week has been collecting blood samples, processing those samples, looking at blood smears and analyzing the data.  Doesn’t sound like a lot, but with 42 dogs, it really is time consuming.  And I have to say that it has been a real eye opener on the life of a lab dog.  They get to hang out in an airconditioned kennel with all of their buddies and do nothing but play with each other, all their toys, eat a quality food, have veterinary care daily, and only get blood samples taken every other week.  I’m almost jealous!  And after our study is done, they get treated with doxycycline, in other words, NOT a terminal study.  In fact that is part of the research to see how long they test “positive” after being treated.

The other big news is that Mike the Tiger, the LSU mascot, passed away on Friday.  We were all very surprised and saddened by the news, but he was pretty old for a tiger, seventeen.  One of the electives I took was with the doctor in charge of his care and he told us that Mike was getting pretty old and been slowly losing weight.  Apparently they live about as long as a house cat and have similar diseases to them as well.  From what I’ve been told, he was found late Thursday with fluid on the lungs that they latered decided was idiopathic chylothorax.  And since he is still a wild animal all procedures, no matter how minor, must be done under anesthesia.  He just never woke from it.  So he did die peacefully in the early morning hours on Friday.  I feel very sorry for the main campus students who graduated later that very same morning.  But like I said, he died very peacefully.

The end of the general DVM degree?

This is a topic that I brought up at one of the Dean’s round table discussions here at Davis. It is just an idea but I think it may have some merit. What do you think?

The reasoning is several fold. First when you have been out in practice for 20 years in a small animal clinic, do you think it is safe for you to decide one day to become an equine vet? Legally you could but I argue that you would have to do quite a lot of “brushing up” just to be able to treat horses safely. It seems like quite a big risk to not require someone to take some more classes and/or a species specific test to prove competency in the new species.

A second reason is the board exams themselves. How much information do you have to try to cram for the boards that is nearly irrelevant to your intended species of interest? Having to learn about which parasites are in pigs, what causes equine moon blindness, avian newcastle disease, and declawing in a cat seems like a poor use of time and energy that could be better spent on our species of interest.

This leads right into a third reason which is the length and expense of vet school. Vet school is geared towards clinical competency and the board exams. If you only were expected to know about your species of interest you could cut out at least a year of vet school. If you wanted to add some extra species you could take one extra quarter of classes in that species. This could save students up to 1 year of their life and $20-40,000 in loans. That fails to mention the decreased agitation and stress over learning things that seem irrelevant for the individual.

What I would propose is migrating the DVM degree to five or more categories: small animal, food animal, equine, exotic animal, and wildlife resulting in a SADVM, FADVM, EDVM, EADVM, and WDVM respectively.

This would require a complete restructuring of the way vet school is taught but I think it is the way things should progress. Every year an increasing amount of information is created by research and practice. Instead of trying to make every student and vet responsible for all of it, we should try to only make them responsible for the applicable portions. To steal from the “other” doctors, they have regular general practitioners that only due pediatric, or geriatric, or sports medicine, etc. I know they have a much large population to draw from but they are specifically learning about the portion of the population they will be treating.

I think that currently practicing DVMs should be granted a special waiver to be grandfathered in under their actively practicing field as should current DVM students. However, as soon as schools can figure out how to convert their program to the new format, then they should only take their specialized boards.

Let me know what you think.

Jason

Welcome UC Davis class of 2010

The FIRST class to join the vet social nework. The best class ever.