Sunday, January 30, 2005
Revelation of the Day
As Paula Poundstone once said, knowledge
isn't power. It keeps you awake at night knowing how much wrong and suffering and bad stuff is out there, and it makes you feel power
less. And the more you know, the more you realize you
don't know.
Ignorance
is bliss. But that doesn't make it right.
Apathy sucks. So does Angst Without Action.
No, Knowlege isn't Power. . . but:
Knowlege + Getting Off Your Ass And Doing Something = Power
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
--Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
. . .And Wookiees are MUCH Cooler than Ewoks!
I was listening to a local morning radio show that has a weekly quiz--the first caller with the right answer to the week's question can win a prize.
One morning, the question was: "What planet was blown up in the first Star Wars movie?"
"
Alderaan," I thought immediately. "It was a peaceful planet."
And can you believe that people actually called in saying "The Death Star"? The Death Star wasn't a
planet! It
blew up planets!
And other fools called in and said
Tatooine! How could half the movie take place on
Tatooine AFTER it was blown up?
Ugh!
Finally someone called in with the right answer and won lunch for five at Wiener Schnitzel's.
After the caller hung up, the two DJ's went on about how geeky the guy must be if he knew the answer to that question, and how he must have trouble getting girls, and so on. . .
It's confirmed.
I know enough about Star Wars to add "Super" before my title "Geek."
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Tyvek jumpsuits? Quarantine? Bring it on!
I haven't figured out what I want to do with my summer except for one eight-day stretch--
Dr. Firkins and I have been nominated to represent the college at the Smith-Kilborne Foriegn Animal Disease Program on
Plum Island, New York. Each vet school (there's fewer than 30 in the US and Canada) nominates one faculty member and one student to attend, then I think the Smith-Kilborne people decide what schools they want to invite. So we'll see! If we get to go, I'll be representing a wildlife/conservation medicine perspective amongst a predominanlty agriculture/food animal-focused group.
The island was named "
Plum Island" because of the beautiful plum trees that line its shore, but when I think of an island that's the only place in the country where you can study certain infectious diseases, I can't help but think of
Three Mile Island.
I guess what I mean is, there's a reason they put a major infectious disease lab on an
island.
Ahhhh! ! !
Okay--second year, second semester doesn't seem as impossible as they said it would be, but this second week has been kinda crazy. One of our classes has a guest lecturer who's coming in from out of town for only two days of lectures, so Thursday and Friday we've got a bunch of neurology lectures in a row.
Already, we had to sit through three hours straight of ophthalmology lecures yesterday and today, and I had to miss some of them yesterday because I had a dental appointment I made and confirmed before they changed our schedule around. So now I have catching up to do, and we've only been back a week.
Anyway, after this week, things should be a litte more regular, and I'll actually be able to schedule interviews for work.
I'm getting more involved this semester with working in the "Advancement" department inthe Dean's office--they're having me do more with "public outreach" and PR stuff. So I'll get more hours, and, as I found out today, a modest raise (yay!).
Other than that, I've got classes 8-4 most days, with Friday afternoons off to work. Pretty manageable. I made a resolution to leave the buidling on 5 most days, unless, of course, something special comes up like a seminar, study sessions, etc. This way, I can actually go home to eat a decent dinner most nights, and then buckle down to studying and/or working.
I'm trying to tutor one classmate each semester, and this semester I'll do it about 4-6 hours/week. I think it'll work out well, since we've worked out a regular meeting schedule. It also forces me to get my intellectual crap together on a regular basis--can't explain it to someone if I don't get it myself!
Not too bad so far. It'll all fall into place. . .
Monday, January 24, 2005
Second Year, Second Semester
UIUC DVM Curriculum
Here we are, folks! I'm currently at 24 credit hours, as long as I don't drop or add any more electives.
* *
Companion Animal Medicine * * * * *
This class meets every day and we cover specific areas of clinical medicine, starting with a few weeks of ophthalmology, then neurology, and so on. It seems like this will be more of a problem-based learning experince, so we'll get to apply a bunch of stuff we've already learned.
Instructor: Vets from the
Veterinary Teaching Hospital
Text: Special notes and photos compiled by the clinicians
Meets: 5 hours/week
* *
Special Pathology (and lab) * * * * *
a.k.a.
Necropsy 102--More fun for the visual learners! In General Pathology, we learned how several body processes can go awry, wheterh it due to trauma, infection, inhertited diseases and what not. This semester we apply all that information to studying specific diseases and their etiologies (causes).
We'll be assessed as we were last semester--with exams that present cases with pictures, patient history and maybe some lab test results, and we have to use our poweres of deductions to figure out the disease and its cause.
Instructor:
James F. Zachary (looks and sounds a little like a younger, shinier
John Madden)
Text:
Thompson's Special Veterinary Pathology, 3rd Edition
Meets: 3 hrs/week lecture, 5 hrs/week lab
* *
Veterinary Clinical Procedures * * * * *
All the hands on stuff! This is when we get to learn about handling animals and the basics of hands on medicine, starting with the general nose-to-tail examination and continuing to specific procedures like intubation. Some weeks we each spend time in clinics in lieu of lecture to get our hands on some patients.
Instructor: Clinical staff of Vet Teaching Hospital
Text: None; the experiential demonstrations by our clinicians
Meets: 3 hrs/week
* *
Clinical Pathology * * * * *
I'm getting the impression it's all about diagnostics, how to use them, how to evaluate their effectiveness and how to interpret their results. Not the most exciting, fun-filled topic in the worls, but useful, nonetheless--especially for anyone interested in epidemiology or in patenting their own diagnostic assays. (I recently talked to a former professor who's developed a blood test that can detect a feline heart disease before it happens--and if things work out, he may be able to retire off its returns.)
Instructor: Some guy who looks like
Ed Begely, Jr.(
Philip Solter)
Text: Duncan and Prasse:
Veterinary Laboratory Medicine: Clinical Pathology
Meets: 4hrs/week
* *
Veterinary Pharmacology II * * * * *
Just more of the same--more specific classes of drugs and how they work, how to use them, et cetera.
Instructor:
Tomas Martin-Jimenez,
Joan Jorgernson,
Kurt Grimm
Text: Notes written by the professors
Meets: 3hrs/week
* *
Veterinary Virology (and lab) * * * * *
Much like bacteriology, except with a much simpler group of microbes, and without the mile-long lists of antibiotics to learn. I guess the only things effective against viruses is natural immunity and vaccines (artificial immunity.)
Instructor:
Gail Scherba
Text: Murphy and Gibbs:
Veterinary Virology,
3rd Edition
Meets: 2 hrs/week lecture, 2 hrs/week lab
* *
Food Safety and Public Health * * * * *
The class that makes you never ever want to eat meat, potato salad, dairy products, go to a retaurant, or use a public washroom--we learn all about all the icky stuff that lingers everywhere, and food poisoning, and more fun stuff.
Instructor: Yvette Johnson
Text:
Zoonotic Diseases, handouts, the FDA "Bad Bug Book"
Meets: 2 times/week
And then there's the electives:
* *
Veterinary Rehabilitation * * * * *
We get to wath the little doggies use the underwater treadmills! We leaern all about rehab (in humam med terms, physical therapy) and how they use it post-surgery and for vertebral problems.
Instructor:
Dianne Dunning
Text: none
Meets: 1 hour/week
* *
Epidemiology and the Media * * * * *
The public image of diseases and "outbreaks" is often determined by the media, and I guess we health professionals need to know how to communicate with the media so false info doesn;t get out to the public. We don't want any hyped up paranoid masses!
Instructor:
Uriel Kitron
Text: none, just lotsa newspaper and magazine articles from the popular press
Meets: 1 hour/week
Electives I'm not taking:
- Canine and Feline Behavior
- Regulatory Pharmacology and Toxicology
- Lab Animal Medicine
- Orthopedic Biomechanics
Monday, January 03, 2005
A break from the break
Classes don't start again until the 18th. I'm a little worried about acquiring some rust under the hood if I don't keep the mental engine running, especially with a 25 credit-hour semester around the corner, so I'm going to try to keep busy until then. I'm going back to work Wednesday, I'll work on a pet portrait for a former UI professor, fill out scholarship applications, keep contacting potential summer research mentors, and try to do some volunteer stuff.
Up to now, I've been "busy" seeing family and friends, evaluating summer work options, thinking about but not actually filling out scholarship applications, and enjoying the new DVD collections I got for Christmas: the
Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection and the complete first season of the
Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (you may think that's geeky, but I am rather particular about the cartoons I like; the early Tom and Jerry's sparkle with Oscar-winning artistic quality that puts today's cartoons to shame--and they were all animated by hand. Rocky and Bullwinkle are both educated and diversely experienced: Rocket J. Squirrel was in the Air Force, playing snare drum in the Air Force Band, and Bullwinkle Moose served in both the Army and Navy and graduated from MIT--the Moose Institute of Toe-dancing.)
Even though I've had stuff to do and places to go, I feel a little restless without a study schedule. I guess we vet students are creatures of habit--either that or we're Pavlov's dogs conditioned to hike up the cortisol and break out in zits every time we hear words like
practical,
Kodachrome,
number two pencil,
pathway,
deep circumflex, or
renal. (
Especially "renal.")
I inherited two pairs of cross country skis from Gregg's aunt and uncle last week, and, of course, the very next day we got 40-degree weather, and all the beautiful, somewhat powdery but-not-too-dry snow melted into oblivion. Poo. Maybe there'll be some nice snow in C-U this week.
If anyone out there can fit into a men's size 9 ski shoe, feel free to join me after the next snow!
