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STUDENT DIARY
Mark Challoner
, Manley, Cheshire
Fifth year student, Liverpool University
WINTER 2012 ISSUE
LIVESTOCK MATTERS
18
Once our rotations are complete we then
have an elective period when we spend an
extra 4 weeks in an area of specialist interest.
This can be done at the university or out at
another practice. Having already spent a lot
of my rotations in Finland I decided to stay in
Liverpool and have unsurprisingly decided to
do an extra four weeks in the farm animal
department. Following the elective we then
have time off to complete our weeks of seeing
practice with local vets and revise for our final
exams. Despite clinicians repeatedly talking
about them and the questions we might face
I am still doing my best to ignore them which
I think I may have to stop doing sooner rather
than later!
I have now completed my farm and small
animal rotations. My farm animal rotations
have so far been some of my favourite weeks.
This term we learnt how to trim cows’ feet
with the farm department's foot trimmer and
worked on a herd health plan for a local
farm. I am currently doing my anaesthesia
rotations. Last week was spent in the small
animal hospital and this week I've moved
across to the equine hospital. Both weeks have
proved to be really interesting and good fun.
We are responsible for making anaesthetic
plans for the patients and have the freedom to
choose which drugs to use as long as we can
justify their use. We are encouraged to try as
many of the different combinations as possible
over the two weeks so we have experience of
them and to help us make informed decisions
in the future when there is no expert there to
help us. The time spent monitoring the patient
does however give the clinicians plenty of
time to grill you on all aspects of anaesthesia
and the drugs you are using so they are quite
intensive weeks! Our group also has to cover
the nights and weekends so I'm on call
two nights this week and over part of the
weekend. Last week I had no call outs but
on Monday we got called in for a colic
surgery at 10:30 p.m., which went on until
1 a.m. Annoyingly my phone rang about 20
seconds after I had stepped into the shower,
typical timing!
A lot of people in my year have recently been
starring on the TV show ‘Rolf's Animal Clinic’,
which has meant we have all been watching
it with interest. I was away in Finland when
most of the filming took place so managed to
avoid being filmed and undoubtedly making
a fool of myself! Both of my housemates have
however appeared in the background and
have seen some of their cases appear on the
show. The programme has shown the vet
So much more
to know...
It feels quite strange to be writing the final of these articles.
I wrote the first one in February before the start of the
practical part of my course and I have now completed 20
weeks of rotations and only have one week of imaging
(learning how to take and interpret x-rays and ultrasound
scans) and three weeks of equine rotations left. I feel as if I
have learnt a terrific amount in a very short space of time
but there is always so much more to know.
school in a good light and we have all been
amused by the addition of dramatic music to
the situations featured.
At home we recently scanned our sheep.
Despite the current reports of poor lambing
percentages we were very pleased to find
that ours scanned at 195%, with my Texels
also having a good scan at close to 200%.
We also have fewer triplets than last year
which will hopefully keep my dad happy
(and a bit saner at lambing time!) My oldest
ewe has however decided in her infinite
wisdom to have triplets so we may end up
have to help her out with some bottle feeding.
I have been following the reports of low
scanning percentages over the last couple of
weeks with interest. Whether it has any links
to the Schmallenberg virus still appears to be
very much unknown and it will be interesting
to see whether anything will be proven in the
future. It seems at the moment the biggest
problem is our lack of knowledge about the
virus as it emerged so quickly and spread so
rapidly across the country.
After four and a half years at university it feels
strange to be so close to the end of the
course which is both exciting and extremely
scary. It is suddenly starting to feel very real
that we will soon be the ones tackling cases
on our own and making the final decisions! It
will also be sad to finish as one of the parts
of rotations that I enjoy the most is working
with other people in our year. I doubt once
I'm out in practice I'll have as much time and
as many people to chat to! However I'm sure
the challenges of my first vet job (as long as
I can find one) will be rewarding and it will
also be good to finally have the freedom to
make the decisions. I'm also looking forward
to earning some money again as the last time
I had a chance to was my second year summer
holiday, which seems like a long time ago.