Sunday, February 05, 2006

 

UIUC CVM Third Year,
Second Semester Curriculum

A lot of the courses we’re taking this semester only run half the semester, and some are crammed into only four weeks. We should’ve been on quarters instead of semesters this year. If this post seems hurried, it’s because I really should be studying orthopedic surgery and what drilling techniques to use to close a fractures et cetera, but I’m briefly (okay, maybe not so briefly if you count the staring at the wall time, too) procrastinating.

Swine Medicine
Instructor: Dr. Clifford Shipley
We just finished this course on Friday. I don't plan on working directly with pig farmers, but I liked working with the piggies in lab and seeing the videos of cute piggies butts. But I don’t like the smell (pig poo smells the worst!) and I don't like seeing animals that are smarter than dogs living in pens so small they can't even turn around. Although I must say when we did our evaluation of our facility in lab, it was pretty clean and the pigs appeared healthy for the most part.

Poultry Medicine
We start this one tomorrow. I don’t know who the instructor is. The field of poultry "medicine" is incompetition with swine "medicine" as the top-paying filed for veterinarians.

Special Small Animal Surgery
Instructors: Dr. Ann Johnson (orthopedics), Dr. Sandra Manfra
Texbook: Small Animal Surgery by Theresa Fossum
Right now we’re doing orthopedic surgery, which I'm taking a break from studying for right now, and which I love because it involves power tools like saws and drills and screws and physics and biomechanics. Yay!

Special Large Animal Surgery
Instructor: Dr. Allison Stewart, Dr. Christopher Byron
We’re working more specifically with horse legs now (last year we focused on ruminants and horses and a lot of GI procedures) and learning how to diagnose lameness. Unlike small animals, horses need all four legs to function and live a normal life. Loss of use of a leg is pretty much fatal for a horse, so knowing the feet and legs is vital for horse vets.

Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging
Instructors: Dr. Stephen Kneller,
Fun! I love looking at pictures, so I really enjoy studying for this class. I can look at films on the light boxes for hours and it seems like minutes. No joke. But I heard the exams are a bitch. And by that I mean an intact female dog. But I don’t like trying to look at projection of the radiographs in LAC 100. I can just use that “lab” time as nappy time.

Nutrition
Instructors: Dr. Allen Paul, Dr. David Hammond from the Mark Morris Institute (which just happens to be funded by the Hills pet food company. . .hmmmmm.)
We just completed small animal nutrition, and food animal nutrition starts tomorrow. I considered taking food animal nutrition becaue I figured I should get to know ruminants since they make up wildlife, but then I realized the gosl for food animal nutrition are very different from the nutrition of wild bison. And I want to go home earlier on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Ruminant Health
Enough already! This should really be an elective. We already had an entire semester of this, including the 50 types of diarrhea and mastitis that cattle get. Oh well, at least this time it only runs half the semester.

Cardiology and Critical Care
Instructors: Dr. Greg Marsolais (surgery), Dr. Marcella Ridgway (internal medicine), Dr. Tom Graves (internal medicine), someone from Purdue (cariology)
So far we’ve covered the basics of emergency and critical care and I think we start cardiology with a guest speaker from Purdue this week. So far it's been a very interesting class since emergencies are always exciting. There's also the fun of solving clinical pathology mysteries (but unlike on TV--House M.D., Quincy, ER, and so on--these mysteries are almost never solved in one episode, if ever).

Zoological Medicine
Instructors: Dr. Julia Whittington and guests
Text: Clinical Anatomy and Physiology of Exotic Species by Bairbre O’Malley
This is a great elective class (except for the fact that it meets on Friday afternoons) and every week we get a guest lecturer from a local zoo or wildlife clinic or private practice to talk about specific species and their anatomy, physiology, and common diseases. So far we've had lectures on invertebrates (including insects and clams and starfish), fish, amphibians and reptiles.

Advanced Ophthalmology
Instructor: Dr. Ralph Hamor
This is an elective that doesn't start until March, but I enjoyed the ophthalmology section of Companion Animal Medicine so much last year that I though I'd learn a litte more about it. And because Dr. Hamor is a hoot.


Electives I'm not taking:
Client Relations
Agribusiness
Advanced Soft Tissue Surgery (I tried to but I didn’t get a spot via lottery)
Advanced Clinical Pathology (another one I really wanted to take but didn’t make the lottery)

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