Open Blog

For my open blog post this week I'm going to talk about what will transfer from my WRA class into my future career. This class has shown me how to properly analyze a paper and pay attention to the minor details. I can carry this skill with me into future endeavors, such as reading a medical chart. It's the minor details that could mean life or death. Also, communication through papers and speech. There is no doubt that sometime or another I'll have to write a paper into a company or to my future boss and knowing how to properly structure it and what style I should use will also come in handy. Furthermore, I may become one of those veterinarians that blog about stuff happening around the office and by keeping this blog I learned how to do it and keep up with it.

Final Post

Looking back at my first blog experience, I learned that although I didn't like doing it at first and thought it was a waste of time, I found out that I actually enjoyed letting others know my point of view on certain issues and it also encouraged me to look further into my future career choice. In doing so, I realized that being a veterinarian is what I really want to do. I love learning more about it and the controversies within the field. Everything about it intrigues me and to become part of that would be amazing. Also, in reading my classmates blogs, I learned a little something about their future careers and goals. It was awesome to learn that information from people my own age so I could see why they chose that particular job. Overall, this may have been the most rewarding project and who knows, in the future I may start my own blog!

Reflecting and Researching

Reading over my blog posts I realized that I have many opportunites available to me in the vet field. I always thought I had just wanted to go into mixed animal private practice but now I'm not sure. I also realized that the veterinarians who guest lectured during my vet class were very proud of their accomplishments and I want to be like that. The last thing I learned about my field was that no matter which way I go in the career, I'm not stuck there. If I want to be a vet in the army, after my service I could still go into private practice or get another degree in zoology and work at the zoo with exotic species.
I learned that to write my open blog posts I needed to actually listen in class and learn so I could correctly tell you all about it. I also learned that it's difficult to find things to talk about when you've exhausted your sources and don't feel like blogging. However, now looking back it was a rewarding experience for me because I have all my veterinary information in one place. Also, my future employers may find this page and see that I knew about the various career choices and didn't just jump on the first thing.

Open Blog Post

One veterinarian that has truly inspired me teaches and works here at MSU, Dr. Ames. I hadn't met him until just recently but ever since he has been inspiring me to continue with that I'm doing. He loves his job, he loves the downs because he knows that the ups aren't too far away. He also taught me that loving animals isn't always enough to go into this field. And it's definitely not about the money. He says, "Being a veterinarian isn't going to make you rich but it'll keep food on the table." I'm so glad that I took his class because we learned off all the different aspects of the vet field and what all we could do with the degree. He encourages us to explore various careers.

Practicing Your Knowledge

This post asked us to go and get hands on experience in our field. I have previously helped my hometown vet so I'm just relying on my work there and I didn't have time to go to the MSU vet and get further experience. While I was helping my vet around his office with handling papers and feeding and watering the patients, I also got the chance to shadow in on a surgery. Yeah, it was a simple neutering process but I was able to witness all the goes on and it was amazing. How it differed from just reading about the process online was in the intensity you felt in the room. You also got to see the vet techs hand over the tools and adjust the oxygen mask or just little things that if you're not there to witness you don't even think they go on..

Open Blog Post

My open blog post that I also forgot the post along with the Learning the Language post. It has to do with the jargon that was previously discussed. Stating that a dog is PU or HBC is just a faster way to say they're dead or seriously injured and also let the other vets know what caused the injury, in the HBC or HBO case. Medical jargon is widely used in all medical fields and although it differs from practice to practice, the reasoning behind it stays the same. Say the doctors are treating a patient and the mother comes in hysterical. They cannot tell the nurse that they may not make it with the mother standing right there so to get the necessary action done and not disturb the mother any further they resort to jargon.

Learning the Language

So when I went to make sure I had all the post I found this post in my drafts that hadn't gone through when I published it. So it's a little late and out of order.

For my learning the language post I decided to use the TV show, Animal Practice. It's a comedy describing the life of a veterinarian and his office. He has unorthodox methods but they work. The only animal he cannot stand are the ones walking on two feet; the owners. Although it's a comedy there are still many terms that veterinarians actually use that may seem like jarble to others.

-zoonotic disease - a disease that can be spread from animal to human (ex. rabies)
-HBC - Hit by car
-HBO - Hit by owner
-Agroceryosis - lack of groceries i.e. owner hasn't been feeding the animal
-CFT - chronic food toxicity i.e. obese
-PU - paws up (dead)

This allows vets to freely talk amongst themselves when surrounded by the owners so they either don't freak out or the vets can really figure out what's going on and how to handle it.