The Beginning

It’s hard to believe that there are only 3 weeks until the end of my very first semester of veterinary school. It feels like only yesterday my legs were shaking as I walked down the stadium steps to introduce myself to my classmates, and only last week when I was so nervous in my first anatomy lab that I cut myself putting my scalpel blade. If nothing else I can at least say with confidence that I can put on and take off a scalpel blade without cutting myself. 

Trying to look back on those first weeks is like trying to remember a dream. I was in such a state of shock at actually being there that there were several moments within the first month or two when I would suddenly look around the classroom and just think “Wow. I’m in vet school. How the hell did I get here?” I mean, I’d only been working toward this goal for my entire school career. I know a lot of people say that, but it’s true- every decision I had ever made school-wise was to get me here. And here I was.

What I do remember from that haze that is the beginning is making a lot of mistakes and having a lot of laughs with people I am already great friends with. And I have to be... I spend at least 28 hours a week with them, not counting all the extra studying hours. And I try not to remember then nights in the anatomy lab until midnight. It’s a self-preservation thing.

I would say it is a bit of a culture shock... not just moving from Philadelphia to a small college town in Oklahoma, but also the amount of effort required compared to undergrad. On my first ever exam, which happened to be in physiology, I thought I could study the way I had studied in undergrad and everything would work out just fine.

That was mistake number one. Luckily I’m a quick learner.

The level of detail we have to know is astounding. I’m not going to lie, I have moments in class where I think there is no way that this is ever going to help me. And you know, I still don’t know if it will. I remember when the old dean of the vet school came in to start teaching us neurophysiology, and he said “I wouldn’t be able to tell a G protein from a G-string.” (This was the test I failed, incidentally- and I still couldn’t tell you what a G protein is.) But I am surprised at the amount of material I’ve been able to soak in. Especially in anatomy, but if you want it to stick you better be prepared to spend at least 15 hours a week in the lab, and sometimes that is not the easiest thing to do. Especially when the freezer stops working, and the smell of the lab pretty much permeates the entire first floor of the building.

But that’s vet school, I guess.

Overall, I’ve had a blast so far. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Especially when mail gets accidentally addressed to me as “Dr. Kristen Brett.” How could that not put a smile on my face?

But I still have three and a half years to go before I actually get to that point, and this blog is going to be my account of the crazy ride that is veterinary school, from anatomy lab to goat castrations to trying to get the vitals of an alpaca doing its best to headbutt you in the stomach.

Vet school is definitely anything but boring.