*Note - I dropped the ball on writing these things - so this one is written horribly after the fact and backdated.
Advances in Molecular Epidemiological Techniques
This was a pretty good course, though it was very much review on things that I already knew. I have a pretty strong background in molecular techniques, and I think that I was expecting this course to focus a little more on the epidemiology than the techniques. But instead I learned all about PCR, Pulse-Net, Western/Southern/Northern Blotting (well, not really Northern Blotting that much), and sequencing stuff. It was interesting to be in a room full of primarily professionals with little molecular technique experience though - the questions that were asked were from a point of view that I don't have. We were split up into groups of three, and on Friday afternoon we gave a presentation of our paper and the molecular techniques used therein. I learned a lot about Pertussis, which was kinda cool. But pulse-net is the standard, and that's what our presentation was on. This class was taught by the same guy who did Risk Assessment and Management (but not Risk Communication, oddly). He doesn't have a great reputation, but I actually found myself enjoying all three classes (when I wasn't so tired I was propping my eyes open on my coffee cup!).
Food Safety and Nutrition Law
Now this was a class that I didn't really know what to expect from, it was taught by a visiting professor from Michigan State Law School. He's written much of the Michigan food safety laws though, so he definately knows his stuff. It was taught in a strange format, and wasn't quite a science class. Because he's a lawyer and teaches in law school, he taught us as if we were law students. I'm very used to the straightforward presentation techniques used in science, so the case-based, look up laws in this giant book, here I'll read you the textbook that I wrote approaches didn't really do it for me. I learned a lot during the in class exercises, where we were actually using the information to answer questions, but the presentation itself left something to be desired. I came out of the class extremely skeptical about every food label I see, so I'd deem the class a success. The hardest part was the "project". We had the choice of either giving a group presentation (role-playing, panel style), or writing a paper (with dialogue, just like you were actually giving the panel). This being the end of the third week, I'd about had it with presentations and group work, I know that this probably makes me a bad person. I opted for the paper, and had a heck of a time writing it, but I got an A in the class, so I think that things turned out allright in the end!
GFS: Pork
Who doesn't like pork? Consider that a rhetorical question. I'm particularly a fan of ham and bacon, though pork chops have their place in my diet as well. For the Pork field trip, we went to the Hormel factory, and then to the Spam Museum. We saw the hogs from truck to Spam, and I have to say that it held several interesting, and mildly gross, experiences. We ducked under conveyer belts, saw the poor person who cuts the eyelids off of all the pigs as they come in (that may have been the absolute worst part of the experience), pushed pigs aside to walk through them, saw the assembly lines of people that trim and take apart a pig to make it into all of the pieces to which we are accustomed to buying in the grocery store. There are still certain processed foods that I'm further encouraged not to eat (sausage, Spam), but that's not because the ingredients aren't of the highest quality - just because I like my food to look more or less like it did when it was on the animal. I'm strange - I actually enjoy understanding that my food comes from an animal that died for my use. I'd rather not distance myself from the food chain - that's being irresponsible in my opinion.
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Monday, June 06, 2005
Dairy Goat Farm Trip
I volunteered to go with one of the large animal hospital clinicians to a goat dairy on Saturday. We left the large animal hospital at 8am, and got to the farm about 9:45. This is a very very poorly managed farm, sadly. The owner is not very involved, instead hiring farm managers to take care of the herd. After a slew of managers over the past couple of years, the most recent one realized shortly after he was hired that it was on the verge of animal abuse. He took steps to get the vet school involved in the care and management, and is trying to set up a management system that is best for both the dairy and the goats themselves. The main sticking point is that the dairy mainly produced goat cheese, and in order to meet demand they purchase a lot of goat milk from out of state as well as use the milk produced on the farm.
It's a ~450 goat dairy, and most goats were between 1 and 4 years old. They've never had their hooves trimmed in their lives. Normal goats need their hooves trimmed between 2 and 4 times a year. In an average dairy, the pre-milking ("dry") goats would be looked at several times a year, if not monthly, and the hooves would be trimmed as need. The milking goats would be examined daily as the goats went through the milking parlor, and hooves would be trimmed as necessary. Some of the goats had horns growing back into their heads - some because they had been improperly dehorned, some simply had not ever been dehorned. Some had severe mastitis, and we selected those out for culling. Some were so emaciated that you just wanted to euthanize them right there. We processed every single goat over 1 year of age on that farm (we didn't do the kids) on Saturday. There were about 12 of us. Any goat that wasn't tagged for culling due to body condition or udder condition got its feet trimmed.
I have so many blisters on my hands that I want to cry. Every muscle and joint in my body feels like I've been hit by a truck. I wrenched my shoulder about 3:45, and had to stop, but I was still using my good arm to catch and move the goats around. Fortunatly, after a couple of hours rest my shoulder stopped hurting. Hoof trimmers are SHARP, and I have random puncture wounds all over my hands from them (4 that are infected), only one open blister (2 closed), and it hurts to clap. Some of the hooves looked like flippers, literally inches too long. Many had foot rot, and most of the hooves were deformed. Hopefully now that they're all cut down the farm can manage a maintainence program in the future. We also got them down to mostly healthy goats, which is a good place for a dairy to be. Instead of calling animal rescue, the vet school decided to work to put a management program in place and maintain a working relationship. This was the first big step.
It's a ~450 goat dairy, and most goats were between 1 and 4 years old. They've never had their hooves trimmed in their lives. Normal goats need their hooves trimmed between 2 and 4 times a year. In an average dairy, the pre-milking ("dry") goats would be looked at several times a year, if not monthly, and the hooves would be trimmed as need. The milking goats would be examined daily as the goats went through the milking parlor, and hooves would be trimmed as necessary. Some of the goats had horns growing back into their heads - some because they had been improperly dehorned, some simply had not ever been dehorned. Some had severe mastitis, and we selected those out for culling. Some were so emaciated that you just wanted to euthanize them right there. We processed every single goat over 1 year of age on that farm (we didn't do the kids) on Saturday. There were about 12 of us. Any goat that wasn't tagged for culling due to body condition or udder condition got its feet trimmed.
I have so many blisters on my hands that I want to cry. Every muscle and joint in my body feels like I've been hit by a truck. I wrenched my shoulder about 3:45, and had to stop, but I was still using my good arm to catch and move the goats around. Fortunatly, after a couple of hours rest my shoulder stopped hurting. Hoof trimmers are SHARP, and I have random puncture wounds all over my hands from them (4 that are infected), only one open blister (2 closed), and it hurts to clap. Some of the hooves looked like flippers, literally inches too long. Many had foot rot, and most of the hooves were deformed. Hopefully now that they're all cut down the farm can manage a maintainence program in the future. We also got them down to mostly healthy goats, which is a good place for a dairy to be. Instead of calling animal rescue, the vet school decided to work to put a management program in place and maintain a working relationship. This was the first big step.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Public Health Institute - Week Two Review
Food Safety Risk Management
Same professor as Food Safety Risk Asessment, which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Different guest speaker, which was cool. This time it was a guy from Industry giving us his perspective. We did a project on Scombrotoxin in fish, which was pretty cool. Not only did I get to learn about a new disease, but we did a management assessment on it, and mostly I learned to KEEP FISH COLD at all times. Or else you'll be a very unhappy camper. Very, very unhappy. Imagine the worst allergic reaction you've ever had and multiply it a couple of times; that's what happens when your fish is full of histamine.
Avian Influenza
This class was really awesome. We spent Tuesday learning about "people factors" and Wednesday learning about "animal factors". We had a ton of guest speakers, and I have a much better idea about the whole chain that would contribute to a pandemic. Thursday we went to the MN state labs and got cool tours. They have a lot of cool low-tech and high-tech stuff, and I wouldn't mind working there! Then we got to the cool part of the field trip - the live animal market in south St. Paul. You go in, pick out your chicken(s), buy it, slaughter it, defeather it, and process it to your liking. You leave with chickens in a bag, happy as a clam. It's SO COOL. They also sell goats, cows, pigs etc, but you don't slaughter those because of safety concerns. You buy it, they slaughter and quarter it, and you take it home in buckets. If you ask real nice they'll use their band saw to cut the bone into pork chops. I'd rather buy meat there - where you know the health of the animals before they're slaughtered, you can inspect the meat and the sanitation yourself, and then you are responsible for all of the post-slaughter processing. It strikes me as a far more transparent method than going to the grocery store and picking up a pre-packaged chicken.
Same professor as Food Safety Risk Asessment, which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Different guest speaker, which was cool. This time it was a guy from Industry giving us his perspective. We did a project on Scombrotoxin in fish, which was pretty cool. Not only did I get to learn about a new disease, but we did a management assessment on it, and mostly I learned to KEEP FISH COLD at all times. Or else you'll be a very unhappy camper. Very, very unhappy. Imagine the worst allergic reaction you've ever had and multiply it a couple of times; that's what happens when your fish is full of histamine.
Avian Influenza
This class was really awesome. We spent Tuesday learning about "people factors" and Wednesday learning about "animal factors". We had a ton of guest speakers, and I have a much better idea about the whole chain that would contribute to a pandemic. Thursday we went to the MN state labs and got cool tours. They have a lot of cool low-tech and high-tech stuff, and I wouldn't mind working there! Then we got to the cool part of the field trip - the live animal market in south St. Paul. You go in, pick out your chicken(s), buy it, slaughter it, defeather it, and process it to your liking. You leave with chickens in a bag, happy as a clam. It's SO COOL. They also sell goats, cows, pigs etc, but you don't slaughter those because of safety concerns. You buy it, they slaughter and quarter it, and you take it home in buckets. If you ask real nice they'll use their band saw to cut the bone into pork chops. I'd rather buy meat there - where you know the health of the animals before they're slaughtered, you can inspect the meat and the sanitation yourself, and then you are responsible for all of the post-slaughter processing. It strikes me as a far more transparent method than going to the grocery store and picking up a pre-packaged chicken.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Public Health Institute - Week One Review
Food Safety Risk Assessment:
This class was definately worth taking, and got me thinking a lot about all of the steps that our food goes through between where it begins and when it ends up in my tummy. We downloaded two programs as a part of the class, Analytica and @risk plugin for MS Excel. Sadly, due to poor planning on the part of the professors, the software wasn't really working until the third (out of four) day of class. We (my group) spent the 4 hour class creating a Risk Assessment using @risk for Campylobacter jejuni in broiler chicken in the United States using data from 2003. It was pretty awesome to see how the software worked once we finally got going. Sadly, we really only know how to use one function (Triangular Estimation) in @risk and none in Analytica. I see how they could both be really cool and useful too. We presented on Friday and and felt that we'd done very well.
I think everyone in the class felt really confused and like we hadn't learned anything until we got to the presentations on Friday. That's the point that we realized that we were able to stand in front of a 30 person class and describe a risk assessment plan without looking like a complete idiot!
Antimicrobial Resistance:
This class was awesome. Dr. Singer, aka "what did you just call me? my name is RANDY!", is a really awesome professor. Also, on the first day of a four day class he changed the grading policy! From an 8 page paper and a presentation on Friday to a 5 page paper only. It's a review paper on anything we want that relates to Antimicrobial Resistance, minimum 10 resources. I'm actually a tiny bit excited about writing it.
Cool topics we learned about: mechanisms of resistance, transmission of resistance, selection for resistance, cycling of antimicrobials, multi-drug therapy. Lots of group discussions and a ton o' fun. Met lots of cool people too :-D I'm having a really tough time making some of the connections that I know I need to make because I'm so caught up in what's going on right now, rather than the fact that I still need 115 hours of Public Health Field Experience and a Master's Project before I'm done. Goal for next summer: accomplish those things.
Global Food Systems: Dairy:
Really fun, mostly because I knew a lot of people on the trip and I made a couple of new friends. We went to a large-scale dairy farm (milking 2500 head), a small scale organic dairy farm (milks ~60 head I think), saw a couple of milk tank trucks, a dairy processing facility (Schroeders), got a talk from International Dairy Queen and another from Schwans. Overall, it was a good experience, though I'm still not sure where I stand on Organic farming. It's a good concept, I think, but in practice it looks very - rough? - to me.
Random fact: Schroeders manufactures everything Kosher by default (the rabbi was there when we were touring), and do a ton of stuff that we love. Support them! They make Rice Dream and the Soy Milk that we know and love. They are making that new line of Pomagranite juice (in 9 flavors) that looks tasty. Also, the plant is amazing, they treat their employees very well. They do a ton of allergen testing between lines. They do a ton of tests on the product to ensure safety. They are everything that you could want out of a plant that processes your liquids!
This class was definately worth taking, and got me thinking a lot about all of the steps that our food goes through between where it begins and when it ends up in my tummy. We downloaded two programs as a part of the class, Analytica and @risk plugin for MS Excel. Sadly, due to poor planning on the part of the professors, the software wasn't really working until the third (out of four) day of class. We (my group) spent the 4 hour class creating a Risk Assessment using @risk for Campylobacter jejuni in broiler chicken in the United States using data from 2003. It was pretty awesome to see how the software worked once we finally got going. Sadly, we really only know how to use one function (Triangular Estimation) in @risk and none in Analytica. I see how they could both be really cool and useful too. We presented on Friday and and felt that we'd done very well.
I think everyone in the class felt really confused and like we hadn't learned anything until we got to the presentations on Friday. That's the point that we realized that we were able to stand in front of a 30 person class and describe a risk assessment plan without looking like a complete idiot!
Antimicrobial Resistance:
This class was awesome. Dr. Singer, aka "what did you just call me? my name is RANDY!", is a really awesome professor. Also, on the first day of a four day class he changed the grading policy! From an 8 page paper and a presentation on Friday to a 5 page paper only. It's a review paper on anything we want that relates to Antimicrobial Resistance, minimum 10 resources. I'm actually a tiny bit excited about writing it.
Cool topics we learned about: mechanisms of resistance, transmission of resistance, selection for resistance, cycling of antimicrobials, multi-drug therapy. Lots of group discussions and a ton o' fun. Met lots of cool people too :-D I'm having a really tough time making some of the connections that I know I need to make because I'm so caught up in what's going on right now, rather than the fact that I still need 115 hours of Public Health Field Experience and a Master's Project before I'm done. Goal for next summer: accomplish those things.
Global Food Systems: Dairy:
Really fun, mostly because I knew a lot of people on the trip and I made a couple of new friends. We went to a large-scale dairy farm (milking 2500 head), a small scale organic dairy farm (milks ~60 head I think), saw a couple of milk tank trucks, a dairy processing facility (Schroeders), got a talk from International Dairy Queen and another from Schwans. Overall, it was a good experience, though I'm still not sure where I stand on Organic farming. It's a good concept, I think, but in practice it looks very - rough? - to me.
Random fact: Schroeders manufactures everything Kosher by default (the rabbi was there when we were touring), and do a ton of stuff that we love. Support them! They make Rice Dream and the Soy Milk that we know and love. They are making that new line of Pomagranite juice (in 9 flavors) that looks tasty. Also, the plant is amazing, they treat their employees very well. They do a ton of allergen testing between lines. They do a ton of tests on the product to ensure safety. They are everything that you could want out of a plant that processes your liquids!
Thursday, May 12, 2005
End of Freshman Year - Fall Semester Review
It's been quite a school year, these past nine months. I have completed the first year curriculum at UMN and been successful.
Last semester I took what seemed like an impossible number of credits (22.5). Some of it was review, some of it was new. Some classes were interesting, some seemed like a waste of time. Sadly, it wasn't everything that was new that was interesting, nor was everything that was repetitive useless and boring. We took the basic sciences: Gross Anatomy, Radiographic Anatomy, Biochemistry, Cells and Tissues, Nutrition. We also took some classes that were supposed to help prepare us to be vets in the future, namely Clinical Skills and Professional Skills. Animal Populations is the class that doesn't fit into any good category, where we learned about everything from breeders to dairy farms: very exciting, I assure you. Then we got to take some electives if we chose (and of course I did). I took Neonatology (with the requirement of being on Foal Team at the hospital Spring semester) and Preparing and Teaching Puppy Classes (with the requirement of teaching puppy classes between last semester and this coming December).
I remember feeling last semester like I both had no time, and that I was not busy enough. I was one of those overachievers starting sometime in high school (some say even before). Last semester my sole commitment was attending school. Granted, there was a lot of school to take up my time. But at the same time I was making friends, creating relationships with clinicians and professors in the vet school, and maintaining my sanity and my relationship at home. It was the first time that I didn't have a concurrent job or research position, I wasn't an RA (and thus was really, truly only in charge of myself), and I wasn't on a million committees and committed to everything and everyone.
In law school, they say that the first year is the hardest because they're trying to scare you. In vet school, they never stop wishing that everything was as easy as it was freshman year. With a maximum of one exam a week, it was really quite a nice deal that we had going.
So why didn't I get straight A's? Pretty simple I guess - I chose to make those extra relationships, stay sane, and develop the non-academic parts of my career instead. I wish I had a better GPA, but I've been told over and over again three things:
1. C=DVM
2. It's not what you know, it's who you know.
3. Everything and anything that you need to know, will be repeated over and over and over and over throughout the four years in school.
I was pretty proud of my first semester of vet school for the most part. I could have done better (and I had several good cries over those grades), I could have made better friends, I could have gotten to know the city better. But overall, I feel like I survived with room to spare, and never for one moment was I in any danger of not being asked back for Spring semester. Though the fact that I still felt like I didn't have any true friends in Minnesota would be a recurring theme in the Spring semester.
And the Spring semester I will write about another time, when it's not so late out.
Last semester I took what seemed like an impossible number of credits (22.5). Some of it was review, some of it was new. Some classes were interesting, some seemed like a waste of time. Sadly, it wasn't everything that was new that was interesting, nor was everything that was repetitive useless and boring. We took the basic sciences: Gross Anatomy, Radiographic Anatomy, Biochemistry, Cells and Tissues, Nutrition. We also took some classes that were supposed to help prepare us to be vets in the future, namely Clinical Skills and Professional Skills. Animal Populations is the class that doesn't fit into any good category, where we learned about everything from breeders to dairy farms: very exciting, I assure you. Then we got to take some electives if we chose (and of course I did). I took Neonatology (with the requirement of being on Foal Team at the hospital Spring semester) and Preparing and Teaching Puppy Classes (with the requirement of teaching puppy classes between last semester and this coming December).
I remember feeling last semester like I both had no time, and that I was not busy enough. I was one of those overachievers starting sometime in high school (some say even before). Last semester my sole commitment was attending school. Granted, there was a lot of school to take up my time. But at the same time I was making friends, creating relationships with clinicians and professors in the vet school, and maintaining my sanity and my relationship at home. It was the first time that I didn't have a concurrent job or research position, I wasn't an RA (and thus was really, truly only in charge of myself), and I wasn't on a million committees and committed to everything and everyone.
In law school, they say that the first year is the hardest because they're trying to scare you. In vet school, they never stop wishing that everything was as easy as it was freshman year. With a maximum of one exam a week, it was really quite a nice deal that we had going.
So why didn't I get straight A's? Pretty simple I guess - I chose to make those extra relationships, stay sane, and develop the non-academic parts of my career instead. I wish I had a better GPA, but I've been told over and over again three things:
1. C=DVM
2. It's not what you know, it's who you know.
3. Everything and anything that you need to know, will be repeated over and over and over and over throughout the four years in school.
I was pretty proud of my first semester of vet school for the most part. I could have done better (and I had several good cries over those grades), I could have made better friends, I could have gotten to know the city better. But overall, I feel like I survived with room to spare, and never for one moment was I in any danger of not being asked back for Spring semester. Though the fact that I still felt like I didn't have any true friends in Minnesota would be a recurring theme in the Spring semester.
And the Spring semester I will write about another time, when it's not so late out.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
My story
To start from the beginning:
I'm just finishing up my first year in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Minnesota in Saint Paul. I have also recently been admitted to a Master's of Public Health program in Food Safety and Biosecurity. I'm not sure what I want to do when I graduate (in 2008), but I'm pretty sure that I can do just about anything with a combined DVM/MPH!
I'm interested in medicine on all animals, from pocket pets to cows. However, my current plan is to track for Small Animal and get some education on the side in large animals. Ideally, I would be able to concentrate on small animals (cats, dogs, pocket pets and exotics) with an aside towards small ruminants (sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas). I would also like to own my own horses someday, and being able to treat them myself is pretty important.
My current side projects include fostering kittens and helping out an extension veterinarian who owns a sheep farm on the weekends. I am also involved in Foal Team, where I am called in when a foal in the hospital needs extra care.
I am involved in a clinical study for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals this summer, working with Dr. Washabau doing Gastric Scintigraphy. This has been sucking up much of my time most recently, but once the study actually gets underway (and we aren't running all over doing prep) things should get more predictable and easier to cope with.
I hope to use this blog to chronicle my evolution into a veterinarian, answer any questions that people might have, and keep a record for myself. Time flies when you're busy all the time!
I'm just finishing up my first year in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Minnesota in Saint Paul. I have also recently been admitted to a Master's of Public Health program in Food Safety and Biosecurity. I'm not sure what I want to do when I graduate (in 2008), but I'm pretty sure that I can do just about anything with a combined DVM/MPH!
I'm interested in medicine on all animals, from pocket pets to cows. However, my current plan is to track for Small Animal and get some education on the side in large animals. Ideally, I would be able to concentrate on small animals (cats, dogs, pocket pets and exotics) with an aside towards small ruminants (sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas). I would also like to own my own horses someday, and being able to treat them myself is pretty important.
My current side projects include fostering kittens and helping out an extension veterinarian who owns a sheep farm on the weekends. I am also involved in Foal Team, where I am called in when a foal in the hospital needs extra care.
I am involved in a clinical study for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals this summer, working with Dr. Washabau doing Gastric Scintigraphy. This has been sucking up much of my time most recently, but once the study actually gets underway (and we aren't running all over doing prep) things should get more predictable and easier to cope with.
I hope to use this blog to chronicle my evolution into a veterinarian, answer any questions that people might have, and keep a record for myself. Time flies when you're busy all the time!
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