And Then There Were Five

It's been a rough couple of weeks for the interns at Metropolitan Veterinary Hospital. Early last week, we found out that one of our internmates, Jon Pierce, was leaving the program for personal reasons. It was a considerable shock to our collective system; Jon is a good guy and showed a lot of promise as a budding veterinarian and surgeon. Jon will be fine: It sounded like he would go to work for his father, a general practitioner in the area. Aside from the obvious loss of us not having Jon around, this will likely also mean a 1/6th increase in each of the remaining interns' workloads. We're still waiting to hear exactly how the schedule will change, but the assumption is there will be a marked increase in emergency shifts, plus or minus a concurrent decrease in other clinical rotations.

If that wasn't enough, another one of the interns was involved in a serious traffic accident a couple of days ago. It sounds like she will be okay, but it seems like we Metro interns might very well be an endangered species. It is unclear as to how long she will be out of action, but I believe she starts back tomorrow sometime.

And then there was the Ohio State-USC game. Ugh. That's all I'm saying. Ugh. Moving on...

As for me, no terribleness has befallen me so far. I'm finishing up a 2 week stint on specialty surgery, this last week in Neurology. I find that I'm attracted to disciplines that are hard and no one else likes. Ophthalmology for one, Neurology for another. I freely admit I'm not smart enough to be good at Neuro, but I find it fascinating that the neurologists are able to (correctly) identify a problem to the specific disk space or tiny spot in the brain with a name I can't pronounce by how severe a tremble is or which side of the body it is on. MRI's, also, are very, very cool. Once one has some idea of what you're looking at, it is an invaluable tool for visualizing neurologic structures and they're pretty to look at, to boot.

Next, I go back to daytime emergency doctor, what we call the DOD. That means a I've made it through a full cycle of rotations and am starting over. It is hard to believe I've been here that long, but it's good that things are going rapidly. I'm approximately 25% through my internship already. That also means that it's getting to be time to be looking for residencies again. So far, the only one posted is at Missouri University. It's early and there will be several more residencies posted over the coming weeks, but the odds are daunting that I will be fortunate enough to be picked to fill one. Any and all positive, good thoughts will be gratefully accepted.

As for now, it's about time to watch Ohio State stumble through another football game...signing off.

P.S. The veterinary profession lost a good man and a great teacher earlier this week when Dr. Cliff Monahan died unexpectedly at home. He was the Class of 2004's class advisor, our parasitology professor, and a caring, thoughtful, intelligent, self-less person who was always available and willing to help in any way he could. I am sad for his friends and family, but also for the next generation of veterinarians who won't be lucky enough to have Dr. Monahan teach them.