Scrubs, Stethoscopes, and Scalpels- The Life of a Vet Student: It's All About the Experience

The one part about vet school I was really looking forward to, as I’m sure most of my classmates were, was the actual animal interaction. And that’s where the zootechnology class comes in. This class was designed to introduce us to different species and how to handle them. The first lab we did, I learned how to hypnotize a chicken. The second lab, I castrated a goat. This was obviously going to be my favorite class.

And it’s also a huge part of why I chose Oklahoma State in the first place. I still cringe when I think back on my UPenn interview, where my interviewer asked me what things I liked and what things I didn’t like about UPenn. I was stupid here- I told the truth. I told him I didn’t like that Penn didn’t really give any practical experience, and he went off on me big time. Apparently that was a major pet peeve of his or something. Obviously I tried to take it back because I didn’t want him being pissed off at me throughout the entire interview (since this happened to be one of the first questions he asked me, just my luck), but he wasn’t really buying it. And you know what, it was the truth. During my tour of the New Bolton Center (which really didn’t look that much better than DelVal with it’s dark, narrow hallways and rusted stalls) I saw third years palpating mares, and to everyone else this was such a big deal. Well, in my freshman year of undergrad I had already artificially inseminated a mare and foaled her out (and then repeated the process throughout my undergrad career), so I was less than impressed. So you know what, Mr. Interviewer? I don’t give a shit if it’s a pet peeve of yours that all incoming students what hands on experience. That is the entire point of school. Experience and learning.

I apologize for my digression. I think the point I was trying to make was that I really wanted some hands on experience, and that’s why I liked Oklahoma. Every Wednesday starting at 1:00 we had a different lab, and the labs rotated through most of the major species. Most of the labs revolved around learning how to take vitals for that species and the major management practices, and after listening to the lecture we took our stethoscopes and thermometers and listened to heart rates, breathing rates, took temperatures, and palpated. And even though it is the same process, I can assure you that taking vitals from a horse is different from taking them from a cow or from a dog. And I also got to tip a cow in my large animal lab. You can’t beat that.

Another part of the course was being assigned to a week in the teaching hospital, doing rounds with the fourth years. Each day we were assigned to a different animal- a sheep, steer, alpaca, and goat, and we had to take their vitals and write up their SOAP, all under the watchful eyes of the fourth years. (And for those of you who don’t know, soap is subjective- how they look like they’re doing, objective- recorded vitals, assessment, and planning- anything that they need done or monitored.) And I’ll be honest, the first day I had no idea what I was doing. I started with Jake the sheep, and I couldn’t even find his heartbeat. It felt like all his wool was successfully concealing it from me. I think it took me close to 15 minutes to finally get a heart rate down for him, and the entire time I was searching frantically for this heart beat I was pretending to the fourth year that I’d already found it and was just counting. And I didn’t have much better luck on the second day with the steer (that time the student found it for me, saying his was unusually quiet, and I did hear it once she found it and let me listen through her stethoscope), but I gradually improved throughout the week. And then when I went to other labs, like my large animal, shelter, and equine labs, where we had to do in-depth physicals, I actually knew what I was doing. (And when I found the heartbeat on my steer during large animal, especially after having so much trouble in the hospital, I admit it, I did a little happy dance).

This is what I had meant when I told my UPenn interviewer I wanted experience. I want hands on experience, because you know what, it’s really not that easy when you’ve never done it before. And you have to know each species’ heart rate and what it should normally sound like. There’s no way you could enter the hospital in your fourth year for rounds never having done one before. Plus, during my dairy lab I got to milk a cow for the very first time too. Again, you can’t beat that. It’s all about the little things in life.

The other portion of this lab was communication. We have exam rooms in the hospital with cameras on all four sides where students can practice taking medical histories and doing physical exams, and then watch their DVDs and see how they did. Now, when I first found out I had to do this, I think I turned 3 shades paler and started hyperventilating in my own mini anxiety attack. I do not do well having that put on me last minute, and I hate feeling unprepared. But then you go in, and after fumbling over your words a bit (and in my case skipping over the entire rapport-building part- oops) you realize that that student you’re talking to is just another person, just another vet student who had to do the same thing you’re doing now and was probably just as nervous. And that little dalmatian is being so adorable running around and staring up at you with her tongue hanging out you just can’t help but smile and relax. And then what do you know, you don’t do a half bad job at getting a history. On the contrary, you get told that (aside from skipping the rapport) you did an awesome job. Now that is a confidence booster. Maybe I am in the right profession after all.

I’ve been thinking about this class a lot recently, especially with the end of my first semester coming up so quickly. With everyone (read, mostly my family) asking me what I’ve learned in vet school this semester, this class is the first class I think of. And it’s not that anatomy is less important than learning management practices or how to take vitals from different species (especially if you’re going into a field like surgery, in which case it is pretty much the only thing that matters), but to me it’s not necessarily more important, either. Overall, this is the third anatomy course I’ve taken, and the past two I took weren’t really any less detailed that this one is, it’s just that one was human anatomy and the other was equine anatomy. But I never knew how to take vitals from a cow or an alpaca or a goat before. And there’s just something about listening to a heart beat or lung sounds with a stethoscope that really makes you feel like you’re a vet like nothing else does. So when I think about my first ever semester in veterinary school, zootechnology and all the experiences I’ve had in this class are going to be what I remember the most.