Taking the externship bull by the horns

Posted November 1, 2019

The veterinary externship is a pivotal moment in the OVC experience. In Phase 1, it’s a distant concept and seems like an imaginary future in the whirl of first year anatomy. By final exams in Phase 3, it really is a light at the end of a long tunnel. This externship marks the moment when vet students truly start to become and act as their own doctors (under supervision), which presents exciting experiences and unique challenges. The eight...

Training for the Veterinary Olympics

Posted October 21, 2019

As I’ve said before, I grew to love surgery throughout my externship. Surgery was something that I never thought I’d have such a strong interest in throughout vet school. It always looked so stressful and meticulous with little room for error. My clinic was really generous in giving me many surgeries to tackle, supervised and...

My first solo case, Ivy the Dragon

Posted September 27, 2019

When I saw an appointment for a rarer pet coming up on the schedule, I asked one of our veterinarians if I could join in on the case, as it’s not every day I could work with a bearded dragon. To my surprise, I was told that this was going to be my first solo case of the externship! In that moment, I realized that I couldn’t remember anything about reptile medicine and started to internally panic. Ivy the dragon was scheduled for later that afternoon with...

Living the Dr Pimple Popper dream! Sort of…

Posted August 16, 2019

In my first weeks of my externship I was presented with Lily, a sweet 13-year young golden retriever owned by one of the new technicians at our clinic. Lily had a history of scratching her left ear repetitively which resulted in a big bulge on her ear known as an aural hematoma (aural = ear; hematoma = swelling of clotted blood within tissue). Luckily for me, this is a relatively simple surgery that is perfect for a vet student to tackle. Plus, who can resist the opportunity to cut into a fluid filled pouch and squeeze out whatever...

Bull breeding soundness evaluations

Posted July 22, 2019

Hello everyone and thank you for joining me on my Western Canadian veterinary adventure! I am so excited to share with you all the new and exciting experiences this province has to offer as I take my first steps into practicing veterinary medicine. I arrived on the ranch where I will be staying for my externship to find my one-bedroom cabin surrounded by beautiful views of pastures with grazing beef cattle and working horses. The huge prairie skies displayed incredible cloud formations and beach-like sunsets. To be living right within the heart of ranch country will provide many great learning opportunities for a young vet to learn...

Why I wanted to become a vet

Posted July 17, 2019

As a child, when someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up my answer always had something to do with animals (except for my earliest and most coveted dream of becoming a ballerina). Some standout dreams were to be a farmer, a wildlife photographer, or a to run a dog rescue/humane society. I eventually started going to an after-school program at the Kitchener-Waterloo humane society called “Junior Vets”.  That name somehow stuck with me and directed me towards my goal of becoming a veterinarian.

It was this program that also introduced me to horses as one of our field trips was to a riding stable. I convinced my parents to...