Writing a blog post is a lot easier when you have something interesting or inspiring to write about. Seems obvious, but when the schedule of classes and labs becomes more routine (and more mundane), I think it'll be harder and harder to keep that promise to myself to continue blogging.

Today provided suitable interesting material, though! I mentioned that this semester's classes are edging closer to "real" vet med stuff. Well, today we had our first anesthesia lab of the semester. We rotated through stations covering patient restraint (including blood collection and injections sites, which were essentially review from last semester), patient work-up sheets (including drug dose calculations and patient "status" evaluation for anesthesia), fluid rate calculations for said patients, IV catheter placement and intubation. It was all fairly hands-on, which was engaging.

I'm fortunate that I gained a lot of experience before vet school. Some people will advise against worrying too much about the experience, that that's what school is there to teach you. And it's true, they teach you these things. But having a lot of experience has made my life a lot easier! I'd only ever had the chance to intubate a dog once in practice (and managed to intubate the esophagus instead of the trachea- oops) but I've placed a hundred IVs, given countless injections and restrained a crap load of patients. It's so nice to have that already in the back of my mind. The hardest part is trying not to look like a know-it-all in front of my classmates. I think I managed to help a few people out today, though, which made me feel better.

Overall an exciting day of "real world" stuff. I can't believe after this semester we're half-way there!