I'm trying to decide whether or not to enroll in the elective acupuncture course that is offered to senior vet students next spring.
Disclaimer: I don't have to actually sign up for the course until a solid 6-9 months from now, so it's not like I have to make this decision this week. However, if I opt out of acupuncture, I'll need to choose another elective, and the longer I wait on that, the more limited my options will be.
Here are the basic details:
The course meets for 3 weeks. The first 2 weeks occur back-to-back and are mostly didactic. The third week is a month or two later, and covers clinical application (i.e. hands-on practice) of acupuncture with small animals.
The first two weeks would count as one of my two electives I'm allowed for senior year. The third week would take place during one of my two-week vacation blocks, basically on my own vacation time.
At the end of the course, you get a certificate of completion. I'm not exactly sure how veterinary acupuncture works, but I don't believe that, as a DVM, you have to have been certified in order to legally perform acupuncture.
All of that is well and good, until you get to the cost of the course: about $4,700 if I register by October (and yes, that is already including a discount for students).
On the one hand, I tell myself that having this experience and certification with acupuncture may be the selling point that gives me an edge over other new grads competing for a limited number of jobs -- that is, if those employers value acupuncture and want to add it or build it up in their practice. On the flip side, though, there are probably plenty of practices out there that don't care much about acupuncture or don't believe it is really useful.
You can learn acupuncture on your own as a DVM, and/or attend continuing education to develop your technique. So it's not like vet school is the only opportunity I'd have to learn it. However, as a working DVM, it would be much more difficult to get enough time off to attend this sort of intensive 3-week, 120-hour course. Add in the fact that I'd probably be facing travel expenses since this type of thing is not offered everywhere in the country, as well as the fact that I'd lose the vet student discount, and the cost could go up.
I keep thinking that $4,700 is a LOT of money to invest in this course given that (a) I don't if it will be something I really enjoy doing, (b) I can't guarantee it will make any difference with potential employers, and (c) it will take up my second of two elective spots, as well as a week of my vacation (which isn't a big deal). However, I can easily put in perspective that I'm already paying about $50,000 in tuition and fees for my senior year, so as long as I'm taking out tons of student loans, why not borrow another $4,700 for something that may pay off when I'm a new grad?
I'd be interested in your thoughts, if you'll post them in the comments section below. I have repeatedly flip-flopped back and forth over the last few months about whether I want to take the course or not, so I guess it's a good thing I have a few more months to decide.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
New record
Classes started yesterday.
I came prepared with a positive attitude, a sense of optimism. I swear, I really did.
It took about 5 minutes of "VM712: Practice Management" to kill any shreds of enthusiasm I brought with me. Pretty sure that is a brand-spanking-new record for the amount of time required to generate this level of cynicism at the beginning of a new semester.
Before we get into the course material, let's just talk some logistics. Last fall was spent half on clinics/rotations, half in classes. Except for a few select rotations (like Emerging & Exotic Diseases), I've basically been on my feet all morning thus far this year, interacting with senior students, interns, residents, clinicians, clients, and patients. Or if not in the clinic, then at least in a lab like parasitology or clin path -- at least doing something, rather than getting talked at.
Fast forward to the first 4 weeks of this semester, and you might be able to imagine why I'm less than thrilled to be spending 4 hours every morning learning about why I want to own and manage my own veterinary practice (which I rather emphatically don't).
Additionally, we have a weird course schedule this semester. It's really the first and only semester in which the large and small animal trackers are enrolled in vastly different courses. Last fall, aside from some electives, we were basically all still in the same Clinical Sciences classes together.
Now, though, the large animal trackers are taking "Bovine Herd Medicine" and "Equine Medicine & Surgery," while the small animal trackers are taking "Small Animal Medicine & Surgery" (1 & 2).
Since we have a large number of "general" or "mixed" trackers in our class, and they need to be able to take any combination of the above courses that they want, all of the classes have to be offered at times that don't conflict with each other. So aside from Practice Management or junior rotations till noon every day, I'm in class only from 2-4 on Mondays, 1-5 Tuesdays, 2-4 Wednesdays, 3-4 Thursdays, and 2-4 Fridays. Definitely an odd schedule, with all of those extended lunch breaks in the middle of the day.
So there's that: not only have I wasted 8 hours of my week so far on fairly useless Practice Management topics, but yesterday was one heck of a long day being in class till 5, and I'm sitting here today watching the 7200 seconds of my lunch break tick by incredibly slowly.
Think I've complained enough already? Fear not; the venting shall continue.
Let's talk about some of the "course material" we've covered so far in Practice Management. About half of our lecture time on Day 1 was spent hearing the "motivational" life stories of some of our speakers, including such facts relevant to Practice Management as where they went to vet school, their favorite species to practice on, innumerable details about their nuclear and extended families, pictures of their hiking trips to Mount Everest, and how their rich relatives died and they inherited enough money to pay off their vet school loans within a couple years after graduation.
Today, Day 2, included more motivational quotes than I've honestly ever heard in the span of 4 hours' time, or probably in a single month. Add the time spent on cheery cliches to the recitation of all of those helpful quotations, and we had about 30 minutes left to actually cover Practice Management material.
And the small amount of information we did discuss was very basic financial and management advice that I've already covered in my elective business courses during vet school, and even that was mostly stuff that I had figured out on my own through common sense long before entering vet school.
We also took personality tests today and discussed the results. Never mind that we took exactly the same personality tests during our freshman orientation for vet school 2.5 years ago, and it was a waste of time then too. Gee, I'm more introverted than extroverted, more of a thinker than a feeler. Thanks for the earth-shattering news.
I'm telling myself it will get better (and I really hope it will; after all, I don't see that it can get much worse). However, it's difficult not to keep in mind that we have 56 hours of this left.
On a brighter note, I'm fairly excited about our once-a-week Applied Animal Behavior course, the first session of which was held yesterday. Yes, it's the dreaded class that will keep me at school until 5 pm on Tuesdays, but I find behavior topics really interesting, and overall it seems that vets receive an inadequate education about animal behavior during vet school. Most of the DVMs I've met offer clients behavior and training tips that the DVMs learned working as technicians or trainers before vet school, or that they've learned through CE and self-education after graduation.
Also, I have had some previous experience with the instructor for this behavior course, and I really like her and respect her ideas. She is not a DVM (although it is possible to become a board-certified veterinary behaviorist after vet school), but rather has a PhD in animal behavior. She does a great job of using science-based research to back up her recommended methods and suggestions, and cuts out a lot of the touchy-feely stuff.
My other course this semester is Small Animal Medicine & Surgery. We're in part one through March, and will cover review topics in dentistry and oral surgery, GI disease, respiratory medicine, respiratory and soft tissue surgery, cardiology, oncology, and ophthalmology. We've started with dentistry lectures, given by a clinician who is not especially popular but whom I really like. He's only been at this university for about 3 years and has become a progressively better lecturer every time we have him as an instructor.
See? I can end positively! And things will be way better in 3.5 weeks when Practice Management is over.
I came prepared with a positive attitude, a sense of optimism. I swear, I really did.
It took about 5 minutes of "VM712: Practice Management" to kill any shreds of enthusiasm I brought with me. Pretty sure that is a brand-spanking-new record for the amount of time required to generate this level of cynicism at the beginning of a new semester.
Before we get into the course material, let's just talk some logistics. Last fall was spent half on clinics/rotations, half in classes. Except for a few select rotations (like Emerging & Exotic Diseases), I've basically been on my feet all morning thus far this year, interacting with senior students, interns, residents, clinicians, clients, and patients. Or if not in the clinic, then at least in a lab like parasitology or clin path -- at least doing something, rather than getting talked at.
Fast forward to the first 4 weeks of this semester, and you might be able to imagine why I'm less than thrilled to be spending 4 hours every morning learning about why I want to own and manage my own veterinary practice (which I rather emphatically don't).
Additionally, we have a weird course schedule this semester. It's really the first and only semester in which the large and small animal trackers are enrolled in vastly different courses. Last fall, aside from some electives, we were basically all still in the same Clinical Sciences classes together.
Now, though, the large animal trackers are taking "Bovine Herd Medicine" and "Equine Medicine & Surgery," while the small animal trackers are taking "Small Animal Medicine & Surgery" (1 & 2).
Since we have a large number of "general" or "mixed" trackers in our class, and they need to be able to take any combination of the above courses that they want, all of the classes have to be offered at times that don't conflict with each other. So aside from Practice Management or junior rotations till noon every day, I'm in class only from 2-4 on Mondays, 1-5 Tuesdays, 2-4 Wednesdays, 3-4 Thursdays, and 2-4 Fridays. Definitely an odd schedule, with all of those extended lunch breaks in the middle of the day.
So there's that: not only have I wasted 8 hours of my week so far on fairly useless Practice Management topics, but yesterday was one heck of a long day being in class till 5, and I'm sitting here today watching the 7200 seconds of my lunch break tick by incredibly slowly.
Think I've complained enough already? Fear not; the venting shall continue.
Let's talk about some of the "course material" we've covered so far in Practice Management. About half of our lecture time on Day 1 was spent hearing the "motivational" life stories of some of our speakers, including such facts relevant to Practice Management as where they went to vet school, their favorite species to practice on, innumerable details about their nuclear and extended families, pictures of their hiking trips to Mount Everest, and how their rich relatives died and they inherited enough money to pay off their vet school loans within a couple years after graduation.
Today, Day 2, included more motivational quotes than I've honestly ever heard in the span of 4 hours' time, or probably in a single month. Add the time spent on cheery cliches to the recitation of all of those helpful quotations, and we had about 30 minutes left to actually cover Practice Management material.
And the small amount of information we did discuss was very basic financial and management advice that I've already covered in my elective business courses during vet school, and even that was mostly stuff that I had figured out on my own through common sense long before entering vet school.
We also took personality tests today and discussed the results. Never mind that we took exactly the same personality tests during our freshman orientation for vet school 2.5 years ago, and it was a waste of time then too. Gee, I'm more introverted than extroverted, more of a thinker than a feeler. Thanks for the earth-shattering news.
I'm telling myself it will get better (and I really hope it will; after all, I don't see that it can get much worse). However, it's difficult not to keep in mind that we have 56 hours of this left.
On a brighter note, I'm fairly excited about our once-a-week Applied Animal Behavior course, the first session of which was held yesterday. Yes, it's the dreaded class that will keep me at school until 5 pm on Tuesdays, but I find behavior topics really interesting, and overall it seems that vets receive an inadequate education about animal behavior during vet school. Most of the DVMs I've met offer clients behavior and training tips that the DVMs learned working as technicians or trainers before vet school, or that they've learned through CE and self-education after graduation.
Also, I have had some previous experience with the instructor for this behavior course, and I really like her and respect her ideas. She is not a DVM (although it is possible to become a board-certified veterinary behaviorist after vet school), but rather has a PhD in animal behavior. She does a great job of using science-based research to back up her recommended methods and suggestions, and cuts out a lot of the touchy-feely stuff.
My other course this semester is Small Animal Medicine & Surgery. We're in part one through March, and will cover review topics in dentistry and oral surgery, GI disease, respiratory medicine, respiratory and soft tissue surgery, cardiology, oncology, and ophthalmology. We've started with dentistry lectures, given by a clinician who is not especially popular but whom I really like. He's only been at this university for about 3 years and has become a progressively better lecturer every time we have him as an instructor.
See? I can end positively! And things will be way better in 3.5 weeks when Practice Management is over.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Senior schedule!
I know my blog posting has dwindled over winter break, but hey, it's break! No vet school = not much vet school info to blog about.
To make up for it, I bring you the long-awaited (well, since October), just-published Senior Year Schedule!
Reminder: My junior year ends May 10, with senior orientation on May 11, and senior year starting on May 12. That means I'll be a senior in exactly 4 months! Yikes!
Here's an overview of my senior schedule, by weeks:
----------------------------
May 12, and weeks of May 16/23/30 and Jne 6: Community Practice (spay/neuter, dentistry, and non-referred, non-emergency appointments)
Weeks of June 13/20: small animal internal medicine
Weeks of June 27/July 4: neurology
Weeks of July 11/18: dermatology
Weeks of July 25/Aug 1: small animal orthopedic surgery
Weeks of Aug 8/15: vacation
Weeks of Aug 22/29: critical care/emergency (overnights/triage)
Weeks of Sept 5/12: oncology
Weeks of Sept 19/26: postmortem diagnosis (aka necropsy aka ugh)
Weeks of Oct 3/10: critical care/emergency (days)
Weeks of Oct 17/24: cardiology
Weeks of Oct 31/Nov 7/14/21: anesthesia
Weeks of Nov 28/Dec 5/12: diagnostic imaging
Weeks of Dec 19/26: one of these will be a vacation week; the other will be more diagnostic imaging
Weeks of Jan 2/9 (2012): vacation (this is awesome: if I have the week of Dec 26 as my vacation week, I'll get 3 weeks off in a row)
Weeks of Jan 16/23: small animal soft tissue surgery
Weeks of Jan 30/Feb 6: elective acupuncture course (debating whether I am actually going to enroll in this $4800 elective course...)
Weeks of Feb 13/20: small animal internal medicine
Weeks of Feb 27/Mar 5: more vacation
Weeks of Mar 12/19: ophthalmology
Weeks of Mar 26/Apr 2: Harrison Memorial Hospital (a huge small animal clinic in the metro area where we get to see appointments and practice spay/neuter)
Weeks of Apr 9/16: more vacation!
Weeks of Apr 23/30/May 7: small animal urgent care (a 5-11 pm, possibly extending to 8 am shift)
Then graduation, whoo hoo!
--------------------------
Items to note:
**I have four 2-week blocks of vacation, only 1 of which occurs in the first 6 months of senior year. Gulp.
**I really can't decide if I want to take the acupuncture course. It would take up my second of two elective spots, as well as requiring a week of my vacation time in the spring. Plus it costs a ton of money.
**My only elective (other than acupuncture) is the Harrison Memorial Hospital elective. I wish I had gotten the shelter medicine elective too!
**My 4 core weeks of emergency/critical care are divided up! Hallelujah for not having 4 weeks of CCU in a row!
**I definitely don't need to spend any more time volunteering in Community Practice as a junior, since I'll be starting out my senior year with 4.5 weeks of CP in a row.
**Not excited about having Anesthesia during the week of Thanksgiving... I'm a bit alarmed that that means I won't get much of a holiday.
**On the other hand, diagnostic imaging is pretty low stress, so even though I'll have to have that either the week of Christmas or the week of New Year's, I'm hopeful that will still allow me some extra time off.
**Hooray for 6 weeks of vacation in the 4 months prior to graduation!
To make up for it, I bring you the long-awaited (well, since October), just-published Senior Year Schedule!
Reminder: My junior year ends May 10, with senior orientation on May 11, and senior year starting on May 12. That means I'll be a senior in exactly 4 months! Yikes!
Here's an overview of my senior schedule, by weeks:
----------------------------
May 12, and weeks of May 16/23/30 and Jne 6: Community Practice (spay/neuter, dentistry, and non-referred, non-emergency appointments)
Weeks of June 13/20: small animal internal medicine
Weeks of June 27/July 4: neurology
Weeks of July 11/18: dermatology
Weeks of July 25/Aug 1: small animal orthopedic surgery
Weeks of Aug 8/15: vacation
Weeks of Aug 22/29: critical care/emergency (overnights/triage)
Weeks of Sept 5/12: oncology
Weeks of Sept 19/26: postmortem diagnosis (aka necropsy aka ugh)
Weeks of Oct 3/10: critical care/emergency (days)
Weeks of Oct 17/24: cardiology
Weeks of Oct 31/Nov 7/14/21: anesthesia
Weeks of Nov 28/Dec 5/12: diagnostic imaging
Weeks of Dec 19/26: one of these will be a vacation week; the other will be more diagnostic imaging
Weeks of Jan 2/9 (2012): vacation (this is awesome: if I have the week of Dec 26 as my vacation week, I'll get 3 weeks off in a row)
Weeks of Jan 16/23: small animal soft tissue surgery
Weeks of Jan 30/Feb 6: elective acupuncture course (debating whether I am actually going to enroll in this $4800 elective course...)
Weeks of Feb 13/20: small animal internal medicine
Weeks of Feb 27/Mar 5: more vacation
Weeks of Mar 12/19: ophthalmology
Weeks of Mar 26/Apr 2: Harrison Memorial Hospital (a huge small animal clinic in the metro area where we get to see appointments and practice spay/neuter)
Weeks of Apr 9/16: more vacation!
Weeks of Apr 23/30/May 7: small animal urgent care (a 5-11 pm, possibly extending to 8 am shift)
Then graduation, whoo hoo!
--------------------------
Items to note:
**I have four 2-week blocks of vacation, only 1 of which occurs in the first 6 months of senior year. Gulp.
**I really can't decide if I want to take the acupuncture course. It would take up my second of two elective spots, as well as requiring a week of my vacation time in the spring. Plus it costs a ton of money.
**My only elective (other than acupuncture) is the Harrison Memorial Hospital elective. I wish I had gotten the shelter medicine elective too!
**My 4 core weeks of emergency/critical care are divided up! Hallelujah for not having 4 weeks of CCU in a row!
**I definitely don't need to spend any more time volunteering in Community Practice as a junior, since I'll be starting out my senior year with 4.5 weeks of CP in a row.
**Not excited about having Anesthesia during the week of Thanksgiving... I'm a bit alarmed that that means I won't get much of a holiday.
**On the other hand, diagnostic imaging is pretty low stress, so even though I'll have to have that either the week of Christmas or the week of New Year's, I'm hopeful that will still allow me some extra time off.
**Hooray for 6 weeks of vacation in the 4 months prior to graduation!
Monday, January 3, 2011
What's the grossest thing you saw today?
I'll go first:
Very alive, very mobile tapeworms crawling out of a dog's anus.
Very alive, very mobile tapeworms crawling out of a dog's anus.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
