Whirlwind week

(Also, I absolutely adore alliteration.)

Even though we are 10 weeks into our junior year, all of my classmates are still commenting about how much more intense third year is compared to the first two.

(And, to be fair, they are completely correct.)

But over the past week, I think I got a little taste of what senior year will be like.

Last week happened to be a busy week, and it would have been busy even if I'd been on a slacker rotation, like radiology or EED.

That's because we had 2 final exams (yes, you heard me right: 2 final exams in October), plus starting a new course (Clin Sci 4), plus I cleverly decided to engage in some interesting yet time-consuming extracurricular activities.

And then there's junior surgery lab: undoubtedly the most fascinating and enjoyable rotation I've had this year, but also the most mindboggling, complicated, and time-consuming, with perhaps the exception of Community Practice-Medicine.

So here's a brief run-down of a few days of my schedule since last weekend:

Sunday night: study small animal material for the final exam open from Monday through Wednesday. Review suture patterns, surgical techniques for skin closure, etc. in JSL notes packet and my wonderful surgery textbook (so worth the $200 or whatever I paid for it last spring).

Monday:

6:00 am: Wake up, eat a good breakfast, drink lots of OJ & water, etc.
6:40 am: Leave for school
7:15 am: Arrive at school, change into scrubs, wrap surgery packs, fold and wrap gowns, etc.
7:30 am: JSL orientation
8:00 am: Head down to the surgery suite and have at it! 4 hours of cutting off chunks of our pig's skin, then sewing it back up
12:00 pm: Done in time for a lunch break
1:00 pm: 3 hours of class
4:00 pm: 1 hour of studying for small animal final exam
5:00 pm: 1 hour of class
6:00 pm: Head home; try desperately to stay focused (always tough on Mondays - such a long day); study up on tomorrow's surgical procedures (abdominal explore, splenectomy, gastropexy); end up going to bed at a reasonable our (i.e. before 11 or so)

Tuesday: the LONG day!
6:10 am: Wake up and get ready for the day
6:50 am: Leave for school
7:25 am: Arrive at school, change into scrubs, wrap surgery packs, etc.
7:45 am: Lab orientation
8:00 am: Surgery time! Clip, scrub, and prep our pig. Approach the abdomen (i.e. make the incision). Abdominal explore takes a good 45 minutes, then 30 minutes or so for splenectomy, and we decided to spay our pig instead of gastropexy (took an hour and 15 minutes for that)
11:00 am: Start our abdominal closure (i.e. suturing the abdomen back together)
12:15 pm: Finally done with closure and clean-up. Time for lunch!
1:00 pm: 2 hours of class
3:00 pm: 45 minutes of study time for small animal final
3:45 pm: Check to see if junior surgery, ophtho, and necropsy displays are set up for pre-vet tours (they are)
4:00 pm: Start pre-vet tours, including extra displays
5:45 pm: Tours over; head home
6:20 pm: Home; time for dinner!
7:10 pm: Leave for handbell rehearsal
7:20 pm: Handbells
9:15 pm: Home from handbells
9:30 pm: Shower and try to reenergize
10:00 pm: Start small animal final exam
11:00 pm: Done with SA final; start studying tomorrow's JSL procedures (gastrotomy, enterotomy, intestinal resection & anastomosis)
11:45 pm: Time to get ready for bed
12:15 am: Asleep!

Wednesday:

6:00 am: Wake up! (How in the heck is it 6 already??)
etc.
etc.
etc.

So that's a little bit of how my week went. Thankfully, things calmed down toward the end; we didn't have any new surgical procedures to learn for Friday; I did pretty well on my small animal final; I didn't do great on my large animal final but did manage to pass it on Thursday night; and for once I had a Wednesday-through-Friday exam done before Friday afternoon, leaving me free to completely veg once I got home from birthday shopping for CLH at 4:15 yesterday.

Next week's rotation is Small Animal Surgical Anatomy (SAA). It's a cadaver lab on dogs and cats, which will be nice because it takes off some of the pressure of working on a live animal, i.e. leaving you to concentrate on your surgical technique instead of panicking because your partner lacerated a renal vein about 2 mm from the caudal vena cava and there's blood gushing everywhere...

It will also be a bit more relaxing because we are starting on Monday with some things that I just practiced last week -- spays and cystotomies. We are also doing neuters (castrations) which we didn't get to do on our piggies because they were already testicle-free.

Plus, I don't have to show up on Monday until 8:30 am. So awesome. So, so awesome.

(And also a little sad that I'm so excited about sleeping in till 7 am, since over the last 2 years I frequently didn't have class until 9 or even 10 or 11 am...)