The Kitty Doctor

Last Wednesday, we had our first set of OSCE's. OSCE stands for Objective Structured Clinical Exam. The course leader created five stations for us to rotate through, and at each station we were presented with a task we had learned during the semester. OSCE's are evaluated on a pass/fail basis - a passing grade is required in order to pass this first course, The Normal Animal. This year's stations included equine restraint/physical exam, canine restraint/physical exam, canine medical injections, bovine restraint, and Kohler illumination.  Then on Friday, we took our final lecture exam (the fourth exam so far) and our final lab exam (the second lab exam so far). With that, we officially finished our first course of vet school and are 1/16th of the way to earning our degrees!  It is so exhilarating to have accomplished this milestone alongside my classmates. We have learned so much these past eight weeks, including the behavior, cellular physiology, anatomy, embryology,

Five weeks down! Tomorrow marks the start of week six. These past few weeks have been long yet at the same time flown by. I've spent much more time in class and more time studying than I did in undergrad, but I've also been having so much fun. Here are some highlights from the past few weeks: I took two lecture exams (aced them!) and a lab exam. We have one lecture exam every other Monday, which has been manageable. So far my studying strategy has been working well. When I come home at the end of the day, I'll take some time to decompress before turning my attention back to school. After dinner, I'll spend a few hours reviewing the material I had learned that day. Finally I'll catch up on social media and either a few YouTube videos or possibly an episode of a TV show, look at my schedule for the next day to see if there's anything that needs to be prepared, then go to sleep! On weekdays I'm usually asleep by 11 PM, which is great and totally necessary wh

We've officially survived our first week of vet school! It's been a long but eventful and exciting week. Even though I don't exactly know where everything is or what all of the protocols are yet, I already feel like I've been here for a long time. I'm so happy to be here. Here's a breakdown of what happened this week: Monday: This was the longest day of the week. We had lecture from 8 AM to 4:50 PM, with a one-hour break for lunch. The lectures varied from Cellular Structure & Function to the Behavior/Handling of Equine, Bovine, and Small Animals. This week is meant to be a review and to level the playing field for everyone. We did get our dissection kits though! Tuesday: We had lectures in the morning, which started to go into Anatomy. The first lab happened this afternoon. The class of 128 is split into three lab sections that rotate depending on the day. My team and I had Equine lab for two hours. This was my first experience truly working with hors

Tomorrow is the first day of the week-long orientation for the Class of 2021. I'm excited to start but am also definitely nervous about meeting 120+ people in one day. The faculty/staff are splitting us into smaller groups of eight that we'll be working with (for the rest of the year?), so that should help with easing into the class. We begin at 8 AM tomorrow and end at 3 PM, although I need to visit the health center afterward to receive the first of three rabies pre-exposure vaccinations. Hopefully walking/taking the bus to campus doesn't prove to be too difficult. It's going to be a really long day and week, but it should be nothing but fun and new friends!

My roommate wanted to go on campus this morning to go to student services to purchase Microsoft, so I tagged along since student IDs are issued there as well. I received both my Hokie Passport and my vet school badge. I'm official! She also showed me around a few other buildings and landmarks, such as the Drillfield. Later in the day I ventured out on my own to check out the walking path--Huckleberry Trail--that leads to the vet school and the rest of the VT campus from this apartment complex. I passed several joggers and bikers. The path passes by dairy cows, beef cows, sheep, and horses! Plus the path follows a creek and has views of the mountains. It's definitely the scenic route. It takes approximately thirty-five minutes to walk each way between my apartment and the vet school.

Today is Monday and the third day I've been in Blacksburg, VA. On Saturday morning, my parents and I drove three and half hours from Richmond to Blacksburg, where we checked into my new apartment and got the keys. This was our first time seeing the interior since the previous tenants had still been living there the last time we visited, and it's absolutely beautiful! Even though the complex is large and has many sections, my building is at the edge closest to the vet school, and our living room, kitchen, and bedroom windows face a huge, green valley with mountains in the background. You can't see any other buildings at all! There is a lot of natural light, with views of both sunrise and sunset. One of my roommates (there are three of us) got her keys last week, and she's been slowly moving furniture since then. We got to see her and her husband today since they were here to move more stuff. We managed to unload all of my stuff from the car and carry it up to the t

There's just two weeks left until I move into my apartment at VT! I was able to check a few more things off of my to-do list this week. I ordered two lab coats and a pair of coveralls online that were delivered, plus a rice cooker. I also called the electric company to request service and paid the first deposit. It seems like my roommates and I have most of the shared items we'll need covered, like living room and dining room furniture, kitchenware, etc. Everything is slowly coming together! Echo has already gotten his hair on the new items! 

Today I got an email from VMCVM's Director of Admissions and Student Support, who has been sending emails to the class of 2021 over the past few months to help us transition. The email was about the White Coat Ceremony, which "is a very important event as you begin your professional life." The email instructed us to make a recording of ourselves stating our name so that it will be pronounced properly at the ceremony. Such a great idea! After listening to deans struggle to pronounce some students' names at the Rutgers SEBS Convocation in May, you'd think that more schools would implement this tactic. As veterinary schools focus more on diversity during the application process, incoming classes are bound to contain more minority students. Like myself, some students have names whose pronunciations aren't intuitive to native English speakers. I think it's great that VMCVM is making an effort to be considerate toward all of its students. A name is who you are

Hello! My name is Miranda - welcome to my blog. I recently graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelor of Science in Animal Science, and next month, I'll be starting my new journey as a first-year student at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine! VMCVM is located at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA. I'm a DVM Candidate for the Class of 2021. As the blog title may suggest, I've wanted to be a veterinarian since I was a child. In fact, I came up with the name "The Kitty Doctor" a long time ago, and I've owned the domain name and the blog since 2006 (to put that into perspective, I was ten years old when I made my first blog post!). At the time, cats were (and still are) my favorite animal, so naturally the title was born. In just four years, I'll have my degree and officially be able to use that title! In one month, I will be moving to Blacksburg, where I'll be living in an apartment with two roommates. I'm not familiar with t