"When you touch yourself, you are soft and pliable..."

Words straight from our histology/cytology professor today.  He was trying to explain the flexibility of the microtubules and filaments in the skin, and it came out a little awkwardly.  But he also made a "Seinfeld" reference and had "Calvin and Hobbes" comics throughout his Powerpoint, so I was totally okay with it.

First Monday of the first full week of school, and I feel surprisingly rested and awake and ready to conquer my classes.  Good thing since we learned about a dozen new muscles in anatomy and start blood vessels and nerves tomorrow!  I feel like anatomy is the ONLY class I talk about, but it's only because the others are still review at this point - thank goodness!  Gives me plenty of time to figure out how best to study for the class and absorb all of the information.  My lab group has done a freaking beautiful job of the dissection so far (if I do say so myself).  Our pit bull specimen, Maude, is looking great despite the skin being missing and numerous muscle transections on her left shoulder, chest, and forelimb.  This week we're also starting some other anatomy aspects in lab including radiology (x-ray) interpretation and live palpation skills...meaning we actually get to touch a dog that isn't soaked in formalin! 

Histology is actually a lot of fun, too.  The professor (see above) is very sweet, energetic, and thorough.  I've looked at cells under the microscope dozens upon dozens of times, but he's amazing at explaining exactly what we're seeing.  Lab is a good mix of turning us loose with our partners and slide boxes and getting plenty of helpful feedback and hints on how to interpret the slide fields.  It's really the way a class like that needs to be taught.

Okay, and there is a huuuge perk to vet school.  We get butt-tons of free stuff thrown at us.  Including meals!  Almost every single day there's a lunch meeting you can choose to attend during lunch hour, usually put on by different clubs featuring a speaker or presentation.  All you have to do is RSVP, show up, and chow down while learning lots of awesome stuff.  Today the VMBA (Veterinary Medical Business Association) invited a local mobile surgery vet to speak with us about starting her practice.

Mobile care is nothing that I've really thought about before, but she was really, really interesting.  She's a board-certified surgeon (4 years vet school + 1 year internship + 3 year residency + 2 year fellowship!) and has a mobile practice where she travels to about thirty to forty local hospitals to perform the surgeries that the general practitioners don't feel comfortable doing.  A lot of cruciate repairs (TPLO) and other orthopedic surgeries with some additional soft tissue and critical care surgeries thrown in.  Really cool idea for a practice without worrying about the "running a huge business with overhead, dozens of employees, etc." model.  Something I've never thought about before, but it's really fascinating.

That's the blessing and the curse of veterinary medicine.  The variety of things you can do with your degree is ENDLESS.  General practice or specialization.  Rural or urban.  Large or small animal.  Zoo medicine or pocket pet exotics.  Academia or research.  Conservation medicine or pharmaceuticals.  Industry or public health.  There's no excuse to be bored - I mean, you can do anything with that degree!

And that's the downside as well.  I'm fairly undecided about what I want to do, and every speaker or lecturer gets me excited about the possibility of yet another asset to the field.  Unfortunately, you have to decide what to do when you grow up at some point. :(