Ok well I’m back after a brief finals interlude of which the last one was this morning, can’t fault me too much for not keeping up with entries over the past few weeks, I felt guilty enough just cooking or sleeping and so there’s been little time for anything else but revision, revision and more revision….

But anyway big news; depending on whether all things go well with results on Monday I should hopefully never need to sit another examination in my life (unless of course I lose the plot in years to come and look down the certificate post grad qualification lines….wait what the hell am I talking about I’ve only just finished this set, to even consider future exams at this time is just ridiculous. Though perhaps this time next year I may suffer from exam withdraw symptoms given that I’ve sat life changing exams this time every year since the days of GCSEs. Reckon next year I’m up for a well earned break from them).

So things to cover in this blog entry… the 07 militant revision session, vivas, upcoming freedom!!

Revision this year has been accomplished purely in the vetschool library. I moved every-single folder, note, book that involves anything vetty into my chosen library spot (this took many car trips I can assure). My spot this year was in the cubicle shed (the same place I ended my revision for last yr’s) it was based in the corner of the shed with a nice open window, an attractive countryside view and a large plant which I didn’t realise would proceed to ooze sap over all my work, forming one large inpractice article on the entire course… Though I had my quaint little spot I tended to drift around a lot over the past few weeks, occasionally revising in the lecture theatre, sometimes behind reception and at one occasion lying on my back in the computer room attempting to force chicken knowledge into my head. However it may be important to note that at no time did I revise in the straw yard, though I did have very brief spells in isolation and at Amy’s desk on the cattle lines (good god we’re losers).
The general routine was arrive late morning, do little work, watch neighbours, do Fiona Fagon, drive back to the sound of blaring cheesy summer time hits, realise done no work yet, panic, revise like a beast till early morning, repeat.
Would imagine that’s probably enough info on what must be one of the dullest subjects I’ve ever written about (and though I realise I’m especially interesting that certainly doesn’t give me permission to ramble on about my revision habits). One last point though; whoever said A-levels are the hardest exams you’ll ever sit is due broken legs and a black eye, what sort of tool goes around telling 6th formers that kind of crap. In my experience exams get harder every year on this course and vivas were no exception to this rule.

(Extra note, I’m currently listening to Nirvana unplugged in New York, an album not aired in its entirety on the Pete jukebox since before vetschool, as such though this potentially symbolic of something poignant).

Final year vetschool vivas consist of five 20/25min long verbal assessments where you are confronted by 2/3 veterinary dons in their chosen specialist subject. You have 2 companion animal science vivas, 2 farm animal science and 1 veterinary public health viva. One of the farm vivas is a practical one and carried out on Wyndhurst farm. Vivas went as follows…
CAS
4: The Shales and Hill tag-team combo nailed me on eosinophilic granuloma complex in cats, atopic dermatitis and hock sub-luxation. I felt I did quite poorly in this viva, I was tired and just gave crap short unthoughful answers (think I may have been a little cocky in the CAS area which definitely didn’t help). However I don’t think I said anything stupid and I got to the right answers eventually.
5: An equine and anaesthesia viva (that’s not standard, just what I got). Neonatal foal health with questions asked by the big Taylor and anaesthetic considerations in a puppy with moderate blood loss and a bitch bleeding out following poor ovarian stump ligation. This viva I felt most happy about out of the 5, I think because the other CAS went poor I gave this one my all and felt like I nailed pretty much every question, which is especially ideal as you only have to pass CAS and FAS vivas overall.
FAS
2: On the farm went almost as well as the good CAS. I got a clinical exam of a cow including DDx of many conditions on the way round. Managed to get in a quality description of the Williams test…which was nice.
3: This viva was a joke, I sat down and the tv was turned on to show a piglet with breathing difficulties, tv off “tell me what you think”… in the short of it I got Ro-ed = an adjective which describes the feeling of your veterinary abilities being reduced to tatters due to the verbal bombardment of chicken, pig or housing related questions. Many students suffered from this syndrome during the 07 viva season, though thankfully (as with my case) most folks got a quality on the farm viva to make up for it. In this viva I also got pregnancy toxaemia and epidurals in sheep which didn’t course any great difficulties.
VPH
1: My first viva and it went surprisingly well apart from me telling the external examiner that his SRM picture was a bucket of fish. However the external commenced the viva by introducing me to a hypothetical consultation room where a pregnant toddler enters with family and puppy (he amended his slightly comical mistake).

Basically vivas in general have gone as good as I could have hoped for, many difficult questions but nothing answered too horrendously I hope. WAS Monday I suppose.

Well I suppose it might be an idea to mention what I’ve got up to today now I’ve got my life back, though I can assure it’s been a highly unexciting though very constructive day. I reckon I’m a bit odd in the fact that I can’t really relax properly until my life is in a generally organised well constructed state (which it certainly wasn’t in following the last viva)… and so today I’ve cleaned my room, tidied up all my belongings, moved out of the library (including Mr Parrot Snake), sorted banking issues, done some exercise, slept a little, had a shower and written this. The plan tonight is to get blind drunk in Dermatophilus Congolensis, think I’d quite fancy watching some Boosh also…which reminds me I’ve bought some awesome DVDs recently!
-A knight’s tale.
- Disney’s Robin Hood.
- Disney’s Sword in the Stone.
- Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
- Once upon a time in Mexico.
- Garden State.
- Dude where’s my car.
(I haven’t bought any DVDs in ages, but I think my stress levels may have exposed themselves through the means of compulsive movie ebay shopping…John pukes, Dave shakes, Paula takes Imodium and I buy DVDs…whose most odd?...John every time I assure, nobody could look as special as John in full-pelt revision mode, glad in dressing gown, mega beard and hat with toilet roll inserted down both ears and made into DIY ear mufflers, we salute you big J Spence and look forward to spying your look-alikes when One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest is next viewed.

Upcoming joy is immense as I don’t start work until the end of September (fingers crossed). On a long term basis there are multiple holidays, parties, pub crawls, balls and graduation to look forward to. However in the short term tomorrow it’s off to cribbs to see the rents and then Bristol in the evening. Saturday it’s band practice and the Duffus mega meal in the evening. Sunday it’s more band practice and the final year dinner in the evening. Will provide more copious info on these areas of interest at a later date. For now it’s time to sign off get a beer and put my feet up, I feel I’m in the need of a well deserved period of quality relaxation.

xx

Right I’m currently in imaging and have 10mins to kill before I need to go and collect my dog for ultrasound so thought I’d make a start on this wks blog (probably pretty pointless as no doubt I’ll only have time for another couple of sentences).
Today isn’t crazy busy on surgery but I’ve a million and one other jobs on my to do list including graduation issues, this blog, a seminar, a cat spay and sorting out the removal of myself from Fri night on call in order to attend the barn dance…Would like to say that I don’t usually carry around a to-do list for the day but this seems to be an increasingly sad trend (maybe I should invest in a diary).
Important items on the past wks schedule include pizzas in Bristol, a cinema excursion, a house party, shocking revision quantities and general elective fun (sarcasm should be noted, my elective is not fun and though I’m a big surgery fan I regret not doing any other elective rotation, boo).

-----5hr general work break-----

Now in Langford puter room feeling much more stressed out than reasonable following my brief work interlude...After careful thought I’ve concluded the reason for my current annoyance level is the lack of inter-rotation group assistance i.e. Lex should have the aft off and hasn’t been able to due to overly stressed unthoughtful tools in her group. No doubt my slight intolerance characteristics showing through but the situation would make me especially peeved if couldn’t have an afternoon off because others were slacking.
Sometimes I think I should maybe edit my blog entries a bit as I’m fairly sure some of the stuff written could offend but then at least anyone bored enough to read this gets a factual/realistic account of my time at uni.

So anyway back to point…Believe it or not this blog isn’t going to be entirely work related and given that vivas are only 3wks away I’ve had an excellent wk. However talk on the subject of fun can wait post work…
For the final 2wks of the surgical elective I’ve been timetabled for soft tissue, which though I don’t prefer the discipline to ortho I very much appreciate the distinct drop in case load, the shorter surgeries and the decreased stress quantities associated with it. To be honest the surgical elective was a bad choice in that I’ve had little time for revision and there’s minimal teaching. However I don’t regret choosing the elective as the occasional tutorials we’ve had have been excellent and I doubt I’d have got much revision done anyway. The best tutorial concerned fracture management/repair and involved an afternoon of playing with fake bones. We were instructed through the placement of tension bands, cerclage wire, DCPs and lag screws. Also the rotation has been very positive in the nutrition department as we’ve had lunch every Friday and last week we all went for curry in Cheddar which was a much appreciated quality night out (I ate ridiculous quantities of curry which was inevitable given that my group consists of 2guys and 6girls).
Case load on the elective has been manageable, and those I’ve had have been pretty interesting. Also due to the fact that I’ve actually taken an active interest in learning from them I feel I’ve gotten lot out of them (shame I can’t really say that for the rest of the year). Cases have included elbow fractures, ventral bulla osteotomies, hock fractures, incontinence work ups, carpus valgus etc.
Tomorrow I’ve got a talk to give on “osteosarcoma (do we have a leg to stand on)?”, then Friday it’s elective vivas before the weekend on call and hand over to the forth years on Sunday. A time with no more checks or on call is so close, it’s going to be glorious, I can almost taste the freedom (perhaps a bit melodramatic).

Before I get stuck into the antics of the wk I think it important to mention the revamp of my blog that I spent way too much time over last night completing. Hopefully avid fans have noticed the improvements and now it’s possible to actually see the muppet writing this crap (and no doubt “omg, he actually looks as daft as he sounds” are thoughts audible from numerous readers, especially in respect to the sacred relics photo).
Friday night marked the start of my weekend of enjoyment with a meal at PizzaExpress (classy I know) in Bristol with Laura. During the dinner I thought it would be fairly amusing to ask if Laura could have a go at making a pizza (incase you haven’t been before the kitchen bit’s inside the restaurant and so you get to watch in awe as the super skilled pizza men through dough around the room during your meal). Laura’s attempt was pretty interesting and the hat and apron she was forced to wear were comedy to say the least. Ideally though we got to keep the pizza for free and so I had it for my lunch the next day, sweeeeebooooo.
Saturday I attempted to revise but got dragged away by Dave at 10pm to attend a house party in Bristol he’d just seen on facebook. The party was hosted by a bunch of medic females of which one dates Dave’s mate Greg (gotta love facebook). The party looked pretty shocking upon arrival, few people and not much atmosphere. However thankfully we opted not to make a swift exit as thinks got fairly out of control (plus we couldn’t really go anywhere as we were both sporting shorts and flipflops due to a lack of time to get changed. This also meant that chastity boxers were included in my general outfit but that’s definitely superfluous knowledge...my god I’m a geek). Anyway antics included:
- The conga clothing changing jogging circuit.
- Crazy cocktails.
- Bedouin tent.
- A well spoken medic named Emily.
- Dave’s parking.
And so Sunday was a hung over mess which meant Sunday night was fit for one thing…spider man 3, very cheesy but thoroughly fantastic, want to see it again and since viewing I confess I’ve had a very juvenile obsession with wishing my surname was Parker (this is becoming a very loser-esque entry).

Just realised I’ve definitely written enough plus there’s lots of jobs still to do today. Over the next few days it’s elective wind up and hopefully the barn dance on Friday. One may get the impression I’ve lost focus on the revision front but to be honest it’s practically impossible to revise and do a surgical rotation, plus I’ve 15days with nothing but 12hrs of daily revision still to contend with before my first viva.

xx