Happy Halloween!

Can you guess the outfits?!

You got it?

Going clockwise from the top that's:

A Japenese game show host, A witch, Pretty in Pink, Phone-jacker, Witch the second, Edward Scissior hands (my personal favourite), a pumpkin, (, phonejacker again behind) and me, the devil (with my coat on!)

Fourth Year Begins...

I'm not sure I can actually believe it but I'm now in fourth year of vet school. The term kicked off with the beginning of Farm animal medicine, starting with Cattle. Up to Christmas we'll be flying through Cattle, Sheep, Pigs and Poultry medicine. In general I think I know less about farm animals than I did about the cats and dogs, but the more I do large animal work, the more I enjoy it so I'm quite looking forward to the coming lectures. Watch this space!

Dick Vet go to China

After months of anticipation, the time finally came for 35 members of the Royal Dick School of Veterinary Studies to take a trip to Beijing and China Agricultural University. We spent a fantastic 2 weeks studying traditional Chinese Veterinary medicine, mainly acupuncture, but also massage and herbal remedies.

This is me placing my first acupuncture needle:

After learning the theory, we spent 2 days doing practical work on both dogs and donkeys. The teachers were excellent and the whole course was an fantastic experience both educationally and culturally.

Throughout the 2 weeks we studied Monday to Friday at the University and crammed in as much site seeing as possible in the evenings and on the weekends. We were fortunate enough to be in Beijing at the time of the paralympic games. This meant an unmissable opportunity to see the Olympic village and go into the Bird's Nest:

Although Britain wasn't competing much on this particular evening, the atmosphere was incredible and we had an unforgettable time.

Not only did we see the Olympics, we went to the Great Wall, Tiananmen square, the Forbidden City, The Temple of Heaven, The Silk Market and so much more. The students from the University were brilliant at helping us out, taking us to different places to eat, showing us the sites, telling us all about living, and studying, in China.

I had the most amazing 2 weeks and I hope they organise something similar for other students in the coming years. I will be highly recommending it!

I Passed! On to the Penultimate

Third year 'Clinical Dog and cat Course' is all over and I've passed third year. Hooray! I reckon I'm almost on the home straight.

Easter EMS

The holidays are here, exams are over for a few weeks and we're all off to do some clinical work experience. I went to a local small animal practice in the centre of Edinburgh and had a brilliant time.

I saw everything from cats and dogs to rabbits, hamsters, rats and budgies. There was a nice variety of cases in and I did a lot of listening to hearts, feeling pulses, palpating of abdomens etc. I think I found the surgery most interesting, but enjoyed the mix of people that came through the door. I wish I could have had more time to follow some of the cases through further as a lot of them didn't resolve within my 2 weeks.

Oh, I saw my first Labradoodle puppy on my first day. For those of you who have no idea what this is, it's a Labrador cross Poodle. Sounds interesting? Well here's a picture to satisfy your curiosity:

I was really pleased to be able to put some of my knowledge into practice and see lots of other things we have been learning about actually working. I'm itching even more now to be able to acquire the skills further and use them myself. My next ems is already booked for the summer. Not long to go really!

Fun, fun, fundus

Have you been for an eye test recently? Well, at work we now have the technology to add more to our eye tests with our retinal imaging fundus camera. It's basically a digital camera attached to a clever machine, which lets us take a picture of the back of the eye. And here's mine!:


Pretty aren't they? I think they look a little bit like planets actually. This is also quite beneficial for one of my current modules at vet school. We recently did some ophthalmology and it helped to make a comparison and look at a few human cases.

On the pics above you can see my retina with a white-ish circle, which is the optic nerve taking info to the brain, the dark spot of the macula and all the red lines, which are blood vessels.

During lectures we were taught the theory of various methods of looking at the back of the eye with a scope. These proved a lot more difficult in practice (and that was just on humans that stayed still). Thank you to a few of the optometrists for helping my with this direct and indirect ophthalmoscopy practice (as well as my long suffering, unsuspecting colleagues acting as patients!).

The Foundations are set

The results are finally out... I passed the Clincal Foundation Course written exam I sat way back before Christmas. Very relieved because that was a tricky one!

Have you ever seen a hedgehog roll?

Look what I created! After santa was very kind this year in delivering my new toy of a breadmaker, I have been creating ever since. Until today, I have only made loaves. Today I made buns/baps/rolls. They were very tasty, even if I do say so myself.

Now, you're probably wondering what the strange looking one on the right is? Well, that is supposed to be a hedgehog roll. According to the destruction manual, this seemed a faily simple task involving slight stabbing with a pair of scissors and careful placement of 2 raisins as eyes. It just wasn't that simple, hence the lonely, slightly evil looking 'hedgehog'. Still did the job though. As a vegetarian, I actually found buttered hedgehog quite a delicacy.

Bye Bye Brian(y)

Brian(y) went to his/her new home today. After hatching, nurturing and loving wee Brian(y), the time came to find a better home for him/her. Unfortunately, I felt Brian(y) needed more space and love than I could offer, so he has been re-homed with a fantastic vet student.

(S)he did get a fun trip to Easter Bush though, complete with oncology lectures, where no snail has been before though. Look how happy (s)he looks:

I miss Brian(y) but know (s)he's gone to a better place, and perhaps a bigger jar...

(P.S. For those that don't understand the brackets: As a hermaphrodite, Brian(y) is both a he and she. There's my snaily fact for the week!)

Pathology success!

Today it was announced that out entire year passed the 'Body systems III: Pathology' module. Very pleased indeed, especially with my credit.


I celebrated by dissecting a Tunnocks Teacake. Mmmm.....

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow,

First day back at uni, early January in Edinburgh and the festive weather has arrived!! Slip-sliding around the city centre on yukky sleet , but a few miles out at the vet school the scenery is very picturesque and there's enough snow to make a snowman. Yay!

(Not a bad picture really seeing as I took it with my phone out of the window of a moving bus!)