Week 14: Heme Final, Nerves of Steel, and Friendsgiving!
This week we catapulted into the end of our heme, lymph, and coagulation block. We had an exam on Monday and wrapped up the day with the final two lectures covering bleeding and thrombotic disorders. We were given the rest of the afternoon off so that we could prepare for the final exams on Wednesday!
Tuesday included two discussion sessions that were focused on coagulation testing and an overall review of interpreting laboratory data. This was a great way to put our knowledge to the test and fill in any gaps before the final exam! During lunch we also had a great talk from Dr. Noosha Kohandarvish, a 2019 UC Davis graduate and Co-Founder of Jade Vets. She shared about her journey into practice ownership as a new graduate and how she juggled being a new mom while running a practice. During her talk, she emphasized the importance of knowing what you want and not folding for others. Her company, Jade Vets focuses on taking care of the staff just as much as the pets that they treat. She also helps with the new graduate program branch of Jade Vets. She works to make sure that new graduates have appropriate mentorship and can potentially get into the world of practice ownership if they are interested in that aspect of veterinary medicine.
Wednesday started off with our final exam and was shortly followed by the lab practical. It has been interesting to see how my perspective towards exams has changed since entering vet school. Unlike in undergrad, I am not constantly stressing about trying to get a perfect grade and just memorize things for an exam. I am focused on actually LEARNING the material and making sure that I am understanding what is being taught because this all directly relates to what I am going to be doing for a living. It is pretty exciting to think that roughly 4 weeks ago I would have been uncomfortable looking at lab results and explaining what is going but Wednesday I was able to go through a whole exam that was almost completely case based with just pictures of lab work and come up with some diagnoses! Just a little disclaimer, I’m not saying that I go into every exam with absolutely no stress, it’s just a different perspective focused on the overall outcome of learning instead of the overall outcome being a letter or a number then tying my intelligence to that number. This mindset has allowed me to take some of the stress out of the learning process and reflect on just how much I have learned, and as a little side note, my grades have remained almost identical to what I was achieving in undergrad!
After the exam I was able to get a nice swim in and then hang out with Churro for a little bit. That evening NVA sponsored a paint and sip night at the Great Bear Vineyard for all of the vet students. Morgan, Katelyn and I went and painted some nice *abstract* art.
Thursday morning started off with an introductory session for our next block which includes pharmacology, toxicology, and nutrition. I am super excited for this block because I have always loved learning about drugs and how they work on different body systems. I am also passionate about nutrition and am super stoked to take what I have learned from my undergraduate career and Dr. Lilly and expand on that knowledge. As a follow-up from last week, Dr. Lilly has graciously supplied me with a link that will allow ANY vet student to have FREE access to a CIVT membership, you will receive the same benefits as full veterinary members ($185 per year) and that isn’t even the best part, once you sign up for CIVT you will be able to get FREE access to her amazing Animal Diet Formulator software (priceless)! This deal is absolutely incredible, and I HIGHLY recommend that you take advantage of it! I have been listening to some of the podcasts and webinars from CIVT and they are super interesting and an awesome resource! If you have any issues accessing the link or getting a membership don’t hesitate to reach out and I will help get you all set up! Also, if you are a veterinarian and would like access to this awesome material you can still enjoy all of the amazing things these resources have to offer, you just will not get them for free (but you’re making the big bucks anyway so you can totally afford this).
Click HERE to unlock these awesome benefits!
Thursday evening consisted of a wonderful SVVMA CE dinner talk from Dr. Amy Grimm titled “Nerves of Steel: The WHY and HOW Behind Creating Resilience”. Dr. Grimm is a UC Davis graduate, Founder of Daring DVM Coaching and after practicing for 10 years, she decided to add Certified Life Coach to her list of titles. Her main goal is to help veterinarians prioritize their emotional, mental, and physical health so that they can create resilience and succeed in their chosen career path. Her talk started off with a simplified overview of the nervous system and what happens internally when we encounter something that we may perceive as a threat. We live in a constant balance of sympathetic and parasympathetic stimulation always teetering between fight/flight and rest/digest. When this balance begins to become unaligned we can start to spiral towards career/life dissatisfaction and eventually burnout. Dr. Grimm's talk focused on helping people identify when they were getting close to their edge and gave some tangible ways to create resilience and prevent the crash. She emphasized the importance of understanding when your nervous system is kicked into high gear and utilizing it to maximize the situation but also realizing that if it persists for a prolonged period of time, a high level of arousal can become detrimental.
Some main takeaways:
1. Only you can control how you feel and how you react to a situation.
We have the opportunity to go through life in a passive way where things seem to happen “to us” or a more intentional way where things seem to happen "for us". With this passive mindset we do not have control over our lives and are stuck in the mundane daily routine of reactivity. On the other hand, an intentional mindset allows us to look at situations with a more neutral perspective without feeling a deep or targeted emotional attachment. An example of this would be if the barista gives you a coffee and it is not quite exactly what you ordered. The person going through life unregulated may think something along the lines of, "this is horrible, they totally did that on purpose, today sucks etc." they have spiraled and allowed an external circumstance to affect their inner peace and that will likely trickle into how they show up for rest of their day. On the other hand, the more regulated person would maybe think that it was a bummer but then let it go and not have it affect the rest of their day.
Understanding that we have the ability to take a step back and breathe instead of just immediately reacting to everything can change the way you view your life. Taking a moment to think about how you want to show up in a certain situation gives you the freedom to shift from the victim mindset to the victor mindset where you have control over your emotions.
2. Stop “bragging” about being busy.
In our day-to-day lives people wear business like a badge of honor always talking about how much stuff they have to do or how they never have time for _____. Not having clear goals and intentions for your day can easily make work and life blend together causing a constant state of “busy”. No one gets an award for working through their lunch, staying hours after work, peeing once in a shift, or being so worn out that they physically cannot enjoy life. All of these demonstrate a lack of boundaries and are a quick route to burnout. You are not a machine and need to take time to do things that fill your cup.
3. Your goal in life should not be to please everyone.
Working through life with a people-pleaser attitude is also a fast-track to burnout. It is easy to prioritize everyone else’s needs above your own and by the time you finally have a second to breathe, you feel uneasy and don’t know what to do. In the mix of all of the people-pleasing, you have lost yourself and don’t even know what you truly like to do or need to do for that matter. Understanding when to say no and preserve your space is key to establishing resilience in the workplace and in life.
I honestly thought that this talk was great to hear and helped put things into perspective!
Friday morning started off with a few more lectures focused on the absorption and distribution of drugs and ended with a lecture on toxic plants. The afternoon consisted of a nutrition lab and a Friendsgiving dinner with some of my friends from CVF. It was so fun to destress from the week and just enjoy the company of each other. It is also super fun to hear stories from the upperclassmen and get the inside scoop on certain courses.
Saturday started off with a nice walk with Churro and then after getting some work done, I went for a swim. That afternoon I had a yoga workshop focused on “Myofascial and Nervous System Reset”. I have always said that if I had decided not to go to vet school I would have done something in the world of fitness or nutrition so it is always a blast to hop into different workshops and learn things! This session focused on deep tissue massage and releasing tension in parts of the body that we often neglect. We used therapy balls to target different areas and there were definitely parts of the class where I was questioning why I was actually paying money to be in so much pain. There was also a lot of focus on body mechanics as well as body awareness tied in with some breath work. Overall, I loved the class and felt much better after working through the built-up tension in my body.
Sunday started off with a nice walk around the arboretum and in the afternoon Naomi and Gretchen came to visit! It was so nice seeing them and getting to spend some quality time together!
Quote of the week: "Never say never, always avoid always." Dr. Vernau
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