At the beach!

Hey all- so just a quick update. I'm sitting outside of an old house on Reeds Beach, on Deleware Bay. Rough life :) The beach is amazing, with perfect weather for working (a bit chilly, with a stiff breeze, but plenty of sun). I'm here for the month of may collecting samples from shore birds and gulls for avian influenza work. This is my 4th rotation, having just finished 3 weeks with the Poultry Diagnostic and Reseach Center (PDRC) in Athens. That was an eye opener, and actually a great time with some great people. We'll be catching, bleeding and swabbing on the beach intermittently all month. Anyway, the gnats are getting kind of bad, so I'm off for the house (which, by the way, sits right over the water on stilts- sleeping at night with the sound of the surf, and doing pilates on the deck)

Life, my friends, is GREAT!

s

Life's Adventures

So...where to start? As usual, I'm behind in my updates :) So, have a guess where I am. Not going to guess? Ah. Too true- I'm due to be all over the place, so how would you know? Well, I'll tell you. I'm in a Day's Inn motel, in Knoxville TN with a broken down Jeep at the door. But hey...they have free WiFi :) So...the long sordid tale:

It all started back in Tifton Georgia, where I went for 3 weeks with a group of 8 worthy compatriots (c/o 2009ers all) to study rural large animal medicine. While I was there, I met one Dr. M- a pathologist with a strong interest in wildlife ecology. I had a wonderful time working with her and now plan to stay in Tifton this summer working on a chytridiosis project (already set up with Dr. K). While I was there, I necropsied a cheetah, 2 alligators, some wild turkeys, frogs, cows...the works. If I get a chance, I'll tell you guys all about it. Anyway, had a good time in Tifton- I even spent a weekend at the beach with D. down in FL. Great time!

So, back to Athens for a rotation in avian medicine at PDRC. An eye openning experience! But more about that later. Dr. M set up for me to visit a collaborator's lab here in Knoxville, at UT. A great set up, great people, and a lot of opportunities for project collaboration.

So here's the plan...

So, for those of you who don't know, it's finally happened: I'm on the final stretch of vet school- clinics. For the next 14 months or so, I'll be hopping from one 3-week rotation to another. I and 95 other juniors at the UGA College of Vet Med left the classroom March 3, 2008 and began our clinical careers. We will continue on in this vein until May 2, 2009 when we graduate, and start getting paid for this.

So, I started off in Large Animal Internal Medicine for 3 weeks at the Large Animal Teaching Hospital at UGA (Athens, GA). I had several patients- a 10y/o Paint Gelding colic post-op; a couple eye cases, including a miniature Llama; a QH mare with medical colic, a septic standardbred foal who ended up having an umbilical ulcer; and most memorable of all: a 3y/o Dromedary camel with indigestion after getting into the monkey feed (and roughly 100lbs of other food as well). For you non-veterinary types, that's a medical emergency in a ruminant (or a pseudo-ruminant camelid), so don't you scoff. However, he was none-the worse for wear.

So here's the plan:

For the next year or so, I plan to keep you posted on the various goings on of yours truly. I guess we plan to be pretty busy this year, so I may not be the best (as if I ever was) at keeping in touch. Please forgive me and feel free to call if you need anything. For a preview of the coming year, here's a rough schedule:

LA Med (Athens GA) 3 weeks

Production Animal Disease/Pathology (Tifton, GA) 3 wks

Avian Pathology (Athens, GA - PDRC) 3wks

Avian Influenza Sampling w/ SCWDS (Delaware Bay) 5wks

Clinical Pathology (Athens, GA) 2wks

Diagnostic Pathology (Athens, GA) 2wks

Plumb Island Animal Disease Research Center (Plumb Island, NY) 6wks

Small Animal Internal Medicine (Athens, GA) 3wks

Walter Reed Army Reasearch Inst. (Washington, DC) 3wks

Armed Forces Inst of Pathology (Washington, DC) 3wks

Anesthesiology (Athens, GA) 3wks

Animal Medical Center (Manhattan, NYC) 3wks

Christmas Break!

Community Practice (athens, GA) 3wks

Radiology (Athens, GA) 3wks

Dept of Homeland Security Health Scholars Program (DC) 6wks

(Spring 2009 schedule is still up in the air)

So, keep checking in and I'll try to see what I can get up here. Thanks!- s