Saturday, August 30, 2003
UIUC Vet Med, Class of 2007 Demographics
The first year class consists of about 105 students (usually I think its 100 per class, but some folks are repeating their first year): about 82 women and 23 men (those lucky dogs!) representing 14 states and over 50 schools. Unfortunately, we are pretty racially homogenous: about ninety percent caucasian (though within this group there are some students form Europe and South Africa), with roughly three or four Asian students, and four or fivve Hispanic students. I haven't noticed any African- or Indian-American students in our class, but keep in mind these are my own estimates. I may have forgotten someone, but over the course of the past week I have met or seen virtually all of my classmates.
Depite our lack of ethnic diversity, we range in age from 21 to 46, many are married, some have children. One student graduated from the Naval Academy, a handful hold Master's degrees in anything from biochemistry to feminist literaturem, and one student holds a PhD in plant systematics (specialty: toxic plants).
Classes and Book List
Click here for the
complete DVM curriculum.
Gross Anatomy is exactly what it sounds like. Gross and anatomy. Basically, it's about knowing every structure in the body and corresponding Latin names and functions: bones and thier parts, joints, muscles, arteries and veins, nerves, glands, and organs. And probably more studd I'm leaving out now because I don't know about them yet. The only difference between this class and medical school version of this class is that while "people medicine" students have a year to learn the whole human body, while we get one semester to learn the cat and dog, and another semester to learn the cow, horse, ox and probably sheep and pig. Fun fun.
The books for this class:
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Guide to the Dissection of the Dog, 5th Ed. by Evans and Miller. This is the book we are using this semester for the dog and cat--now nite that anatomically, "the cat is
not a small dog," so we have the option to purchase a separate cat anatomy book, or use class notes that point out the differences between the two species.
*
Textbook of Veterinary Anatomy, 3rd ed. by Dyce: This book covers several species, large and small, but we will use this book moslty second semester when we look at larger animals.
*
Pasquini ("pass-kwee-nee"--I love saying this name!): I don't know the title of this book because I don't have it with me right now, but since all the students and professors call the books by the author's name, I know Pasquini wrote and illustrated this book. It's an excellent book, with drawings laid out comparitively; the dog forelimb, horse forelimb, sheep forelimb and cow forelimb are all illustraed so you can see them next to each other and compare their structures. The pictures are also good for coloring. Pasquini also sneaks in some cartoons that are pretty relevant to the chapters: in the "reproductive" chapter, along with some cartoon of animals in compromising positions, there is a cartoon of a very sad bull with underdeveloped testis. . .
Veterinary Histology (with a little Embryology later in the semester) is a class they might as well call "Microscope." All we do is look at things through a microscope. Histology focuses on normal body tissues and cells, so we will learn to recognize things like liver cells and brain tissue and such from microscope slides, then later, when we take Bacteriology and Pahtobiology, we will look at what happens when these tissues become infected or abnornmal.
The books for this course:
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Veterinary Histology by Dellmann: no picture in this book, just text about tissues, stains and lab techniques. A good reference.
*
Some Book Not Available Yet in the Bookstore by the instructor, Eurell: lots of pitures with text describin each image, and accompanying CD-rom with more images of cells and tissues. We can access it on the web until the books are distributedd--seemslike a great book so far. And it's nice to have the books author teaching the class.
Physiology: This class is basically all about how the body works. Anatomy teaches you all the parts of the body, and Physiology picks up and tell you how all those parts work together. There is more abstract information in this course about biochenistry and fnctions on a cellular/molecular level-- things that cannot bee seen on a cadaver or through a microscope. I love this class because I love functions and processes. This semester we focus on the renal system (kidneys and water balance), the endcocrine physiology (hormones hormones hormones), and something els--I forget but I'll check my syllabus.
Books:
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Physiology by Costanzo
*
Endocrine Physiology by Porterfield
*and various web resources
Nuerobiology: The brain an spinal cord are the stars of this show, but nerves innervate (add that to your vocab list!) every little corner of the body and controls virtually all body funtctions, so this class applies anatomy and physiology.
Books:
For now, just class notes put together by the professor, which include a color atlas of the sheep brain. She said there are no good textbooks out there (yet) for
veterinary nuerology.
Clinical Orientation: Once a week, we spend time in the on-campus veterinary clinic to get aquainted with the hands-on, prractical side of vet med. This is when we get to touch and poke
live animals.
TIP FOR FUTURE VETERINARY STUDENTS: Take as many upper-lever biology courses related to medicine as possible! Taking Microbiology, Developmental Biology (formerly known as Embryology), Human Physiology, Biochemistry, Genetics, and Zoology has already helped me. Physiology in vetschool runs full speed ahead, so having a survey course has given me a good general background. If this was my first time around in Physiology, I think I'd feel a bit overwhelmed. I know many of my classmates are already feeling this way, especially if they've had little more than organic chemistry and general biology.
