The End of Veterinary School...

It has been quite some time since I posted here, as I have been quite busy this year. My last post was in November and I had just finished my rotation on equine medicine. This past Friday was my last day of veterinary school ever! I can't believe how fast these last 4 years have gone by! This has been a tough 4 years, although I must say that it has been an enjoyable 4 years. Kristen and I have been apart for a while now and communicating via skype, which is hard and I am ready to finally be with her in person! Over these last two weeks I was on small animal internal medicine. I felt that I would greatly benefit from two weeks of seeing cases not only for the final examinations but for when I begin working in practice. I've learned so much in the last two weeks and knowing that much more has made me much more confident in my decision making for cases. For the next two weeks, I will be studying at home and out at the university in preparation for final exams. We have 8 oral examination stations (3 large animal, 1 anesthesia, 1 communications and 3 small animal). The communications station is 20 min long but divided into two scenarios that are 10 min each. There will be a difficult situation that we have to confront and a routine chat with a client scenario. The anesthesia station is basically us chatting with an anesthesiologist about what sedation / induction agents we would use in various patients, how to safety check an anesthesia machine and explaining all of the different breathing circuits that are available for use. All of the other stations for small and large animal are basically on history taking, physical examination and diagnostic interpretation. I am excited to sit for these oral exams and also nervous! They are going to be a wee bit scary! Following the oral examinations, we have a 3 hour multiple choice question exam on Friday. I am SOOOO ready for this to be over! Once I am finished here, I then have to sit for the Arizona Veterinary Medical Examining Board's exam! Does the testing ever end?????? Seems like one test after the other. I realize that the rest of my career will be constantly testing me, but I am ready for these stressful university exams to be over already! In three weeks, I will be free and then Kristen will be coming shortly after followed by some AZ family that will be coming to see me graduate. My grandpa will be coming all the way to Scotland!!! It will be the longest trip he has ever taken in his entire life and I am looking forward to having him here to see me graduate. Soon I will be back in AZ and it will feel oh so good to be back where the weather is warm and sunny! Looking forward to seeing you all soon! I will try and post again before finals. If not, I will definitely post after to say how I did! I did manage to pass the ridiculous NAVLE exam...I've never been bombarded by so many random questions in my entire life until I sat for that exam! Will post again soon!