Ride for World Health 2012

I found out recently that I was selected as a National Team Rider for a cross-country bicycle ride cum fundraiser, called the Ride for World Health. 

The Ride for World Health is a national, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which advocates for improvements in the quality and accessibility of national and global healthcare. Each year, the Ride for World Health culminates its fundraising efforts in a 3,700 mile cross-country bike ride from San Diego, CA to Washington, D.C., stopping at 50+ locations along the way and educate community members about the healthcare issues our world is facing today, including topics like HIV education, poverty and healthcare, and malaria prevention. Since the first cross-country trip in 2006, R4WH has raised nearly $500,000 for various global health charities. Last year's ride was a great success with $50,000 donated to World Bicycle Relief and HEAL Africa. The beneficiaries for Ride for World Health 2012 are Louie's Kid's, focused on childhood obesity, MANA, an organization that helps treat severely malnourished children in developing countries, and SOIL, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting soil resources, empowering communities and transforming wastes into resources in Haiti.

The team this year will ride from San Diego, CA to Washington, D.C. in just under eight weeks, and deliver lectures and seminars to a wide variety of audiences from community centers and healthcare offices to preschools and teen groups.  It's an amazing opportunity for me to integrate my love of cycling with the things I've learned about the "One Medicine" concept in school, as well as get great experience teaching and spend two months making a small difference in the world.  The lecture series is organized by the riders, so each team member gets the chance to teach topics of his or her expertise or interest.  The majority of the team is in the human health field--the ride is organized by Ohio State medical students--so my input to the topic of world health from the veterinary side is fairly unique.  Hopefully we'll be able to tailor part of the lecture series to zoonotic disease, and the interactions between environmental change, agriculture, and these diseases, which is my particular area of interest in veterinary medicine. 

More information about the ride, our beneficiaries, and our route can be found on the website, here:
http://rideforworldhealth.org/
Or, on the facebook page for the ride, here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ride-for-World-Health/11862555943

My fundraising goal is $2700, and I'm hoping to hit the $1000 mark by February 1, 2012.  I truly appreciate any and all contributions, no matter how small!  To donate, follow the link below and click on the "donate to this rider" button:
http://rideforworldhealth.org/~r4wh/?q=theriders/bio/114

I'll be posting updates on my training and fundraising here and on my facebook event page, here:
http://www.facebook.com/events/194356770653699/

Western Veterinary Conference

I took a free block for the past two weeks so that I could go to the Western Veterinary Conference in Las Vegas.  I won a scholarship to go, so it wasn’t on a complete whim, but on the whole the experience felt a lot more like vacation than work.  

I arrived in Vegas at midnight on a Saturday after almost nine (yes, NINE) hours of sitting at the Ithaca airport waiting for the weather to clear so our little prop-plane connection flight to Philly could get in and out.  Needless to say, walking into The Excalibur (which looked a lot more like “THE EXCALIBUR!!!!) after traveling all day and just wanting to fall into bed was a little overwhelming…and I remembered why I drink when I’m in Vegas.

The majestic Excalibur hotel and casino

 I’d last been to Vegas in 2007 for Vegoose, a music festival on Halloween weekend, and I promised myself I wouldn’t come back for at least ten years.  So much for that. 

The Conference hosted two breakfasts for the scholarship winners (one student from each vet school in North America) at the Four Seasons hotel, which amounted to the two fanciest breakfasts I’ve eaten since starting vet school.  I think I singlehandedly took down an entire harvest of strawberries between those two mornings.  

Being Vegas, it was nearly impossible to do anything without walking through four casinos to get where you’re going, but I managed to navigate both the quickest indoor route (for those cold mornings) from Exalibur, through the Luxor, into Mandalay Bay and to the Mandalay Bay conference center, as well as the most outdoor, least casino-filled route out the service entrance to the Mandalay Bay Shark Reef and along the strip all the way to the back entrance outside Tower II of the Excalibur (for the beautiful sunny afternoons when I needed to waste time).

I did actually do a few useful, veterinary-related activities between catching Cirque du Soliel and wandering the strip watching the Bellagio fountain and the sad midwesterners camped out at the slots.  I went to an afternoon of lectures on anesthesia in exotics and zoo animals, learned about dog behavior from Sophia Yin, practiced reading thoracic radiographs, and was one of about twenty to make it through a whole afternoon on camelid medicine with Dr. Meredyth Jones (I was in good company—Mary Smith was another audience member, after finishing giving her own afternoon of small ruminant talks).

On the last day I ditched the conference, rented a car, and headed for the desert.  After an unsuccessful attempt to stop at In-N-Out for breakfast (who says you can’t eat hamburgers before 10 am), I drove out to the Hoover Dam and walked across the new Mike O’Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge that spans the Colorado just downstream of the dam.  Some might call the Hoover Dam a marvel of modern (or, 20^th century) engineering, but I just found it vaguely depressing, especially looking down at the tiny muddy stream—once the Colorado River—that flows out from the power plant downstream of the dam.  I decided not to take the dam tour, in favor of heading out to the north side of Lake Mead and hiking in the sun-baked Martian Mojave.  With the 127 Days trailer looping in my head, I hiked up an old wash into a small canyon, heading for hills on the distant horizon, and hoping that I’d get back to my car with both my arms still on. 

Hiking in a canyon near Lake Mead

Fortunately, I made it back to Ithaca with all limbs intact, and not having gambled away my next years tuition money.  The conference was great, and Cornell wrote up a little press release about it here: http://web.vet.cornell.edu/news/Lashnits.cfm.  Now if only I got to be on working vacation for the rest of the year….

The Ithaca Eating Project

I've been complaining lately that there aren't any good restaurants in Ithaca.  After driving around for a little while doing errands today, I realized that there are a lot of restaurants that I've never even heard of, much less been to, here in town.  I got on the interwebz when I got home, and discovered....161 restaurants currently in Ithaca, to be exact (and not counting McDonalds, Subway and the like).  I also came upon this website, www.eatingithaca.com, and they're in the midst of eating at every restaurant in Ithaca from A to Z.  They're also chatting with chefs and a little distracted by other foodie-related things, but I like the eating part, so I'm in.  After two and a half years here, I've eaten at 42 of the 161 restaurants here....and I have about a year to finish 119 more!  Wish me luck (and a gym membership)!

For a list of the restaurants, and where I've been, check out the google doc: The Ithaca Eating Project spreadsheet

And, since it's completely non-veterinary related, I'm taking the posting about this new project (undoubtedly more interesting than my day-to-day activities at the vet school), and moving them to a neighboring blog.  Go to The Ithaca Eating Project blog if you're interested....in seeing me stuff my face.

Llama Rescue Day

I took a day off from Imaging on Thursday to go with about 20 other Cornell vet students out to the Northeast Llama Rescue in Middleburgh, NY (in Schoharie county, west of the Albany area, so...far away) to help with some basic care of 100 llamas that had been rescued as part of an animal welfare seizure in Montana.  Over 600 llamas had been rescued from the Montana farm, and 100 of them were shipped out to Wes Laraway at Red Maple Farm, home of the Northeast Llama Rescue.  All 100 were males, and they were all supposed to be castrated (although we found 6 that weren't...more on that in a bit), so that should have made our jobs a little easier--no pregnancy checks, at least!

Sarrah, John, and me wrangling llamas

All the llamas were rounded up in the barn when we got there, and after a quick tour of the farm (which also houses rescued and rehabilitating wildlife as the NY Wildlife Rescue Center, and rescued farm animals as Barnyard Sancuary), we got down to business.  We teamed up and wrangled the llamas into pens, gave them somewhat cursory physical exams, and did routine vaccines, microchipping, and some fecal sampling.  The range that we saw in terms of their overall condition and well being was really broad--from some chubby, cheeky guys to sadly emaciated boys trailing matted fiber almost down to the ground.  There were also a few that turned out to not have been castrated, so we got to do standing castrations on those--one student per testicle!

LlamaFACE

Some of the llamas were super friendly and even liked having their faces scratched and petted, confirming my suspicions that llamas, while not as adorable as alpacas, have generally superior personalities.  And that we need one for our backyard.

The operation at Red Maple Farm was really interesting and the setting was beautiful...it was a little bit like the farm of folklore with one of every animal you can imagine--even peacocks and bobcats!  Wes has a website for all of his rescues, where you can take a look at some of his animals, including the rescued llamas and some pictures of our day on the farm: http://redmaplefarm.net/

Radiation Vacation??

After nearly two weeks of working with the radiologists on the imaging service, I honestly don't think the rotation deserves it's reputation--radiation vacation, radiholiday--whatever your preferred auspicious/inauspicious moniker. Sure, we only worked 8 am - 5 pm, which by the sound of it is by FAR fewer hours than some services, but it was more like a Make-Your-Own-Rotation than a holiday. Starting the day with an hour and a half of "Resident Rounds" every morning, we were usually free to watch and learn from the techs until we started "Student Rounds" in the afternoon. All the time in between is largely unsupervised, meaning that you can do anything from radiograph your dog, to watch a CT scan on an eagle, to check your email and study for boards. I suppose the amount of freedom that we're given on this rotation makes it prime for slacking, but it's also the only time that we're given explicit instruction in how to create a radiograph. Especially for someone like me who hasn't worked in private practice or had experience as a vet tech, the opportunity to learn from the techs here not only how to position an animal for different images, but also all the different settings, tips, and tricks that produce at least an average radiograph (let's not aim too high for the first try), is truly invaluable.

We do LOTS of rounds on Imaging. Resident rounds--appropriately titled--are when the residents present the images from the cases that were seen the previous day and overnight. They project the images--usually radiographs, but from time to time still images from an ultrasound, MRI, CT scan, or scintigraphy--on a big screen, and describe the findings and conclusions from those findings. Some common--and least arguement-inducing--reasons we'll use radiographs are to look for signs of metastasis in the lungs, or pre- and post-op images of orthopedic surgeries. We also have student rounds in the afternoons, in which we look at images from cases archived for teaching, and have to go through what we see and what we think that means. While we have instruction during Block 5 on interpreting radiographs, having rounds like this every day helps cement in the things we learned then, but also helps me at least see things that I hadn't seen before. I had a pretty good idea of what radiologists mean when they say they see an airspace or airway pattern in the lungs, but now I've seen--and had to point out with a laser pointer--a bunch of different examples. And hey, practice makes perfect, right?

Imagine Imaging

I finished derm last week on a pretty calm note, moving away from allergies and atopy into the realm of ear infections (of course, brought on by allergies or atopy...) and autoimmune disorders like pemphigus. I spent most of one day trying to figure out the difference between "puppy strangles," a derm problem in dogs, and regular-type "strangles," which is an infection seen in the lymph nodes of young horses. Of course once I finally got around to figuring out puppy strangles, and that we don't really know what causes it but that it's definitely not the same infection as in horses, I discovered that the dog I was working with didn't actually even have puppy strangles. Nice. But I guess that's the educational part of being on clinics...now that I've spent all this time trying to diagnose puppy strangles, at least I should be able to recognize it if (/when?) I see it.

On Monday I started my second rotation, Imaging. This means mostly radiology (taking x-rays), but with a little bit of ultrasound, MRI, and CT thrown in for good measure. I was excited to see the differences between rotations, and how each service does things a bit differently (at least, that's what I assumed...). Again, there were 5 students on the rotation, though this time it was all third years, so I was hoping that there was someone who knew how to use UVIS (our confusing and notoriously bug-ridden computerized medical records system). We got a lot of instruction and practice interpreting radiographs (aka "x-rays," but if we call the actual images of bones and body parts that come up on film or the computer "x-rays" we get a lecture about how x-rays are actually the radiation that produces images, which are properly known as "radiographs." Phew.)--anyway, we got a lot of instruction in how to interpret these images during first and second year, but not a lot of info on how to actually produce the images. So, I was looking forward to two weeks of practicing taking radiographs of dogs and cats that came in for diagnostics.

Snowstorms and dandruff

This week started out auspiciously enough--with reports of feet of snow coming our way. And indeed, Tuesday morning I woke up to the prospect of digging my car out from under almost a foot of snow. We thought that our appointments might cancel for the day because of the inclement weather, but we only had one no-show. And a bunch of different consults from other services in the hospital.

We worked with Dr. Miller, one of the two Derm chiefs, last week, and this week we're working with Dr. Scott (the other chief) and Dr. Clark (the resident). It's interesting to see each doctor's approach to the same problems--allergies in dogs or ear infections--and also to how they communicate with their clients. I wonder what it's like for clients to have different students every time they come to Cornell, and then only see the doctor for a few minutes at a time sometimes.

I've started to get more comfortable with the computer system we use--UVIS--and all the paperwork and protocols we have to follow. I got to take my first ear swabs (exciting? no.) and make and stain slides, but other than that we don't do much in the way of "procedures" on derm. The doctors did a punch biopsy last week, and all the students (there are 5 of us on this rotation) got to help with the injections for an intradermal allergy test--there are 50 injections to give so I don't think anyone was super keen on doing all of them!

There's more snow forecasted for today, but right now it's looking clear and cold, with not a flake in the sky. Hopefully the weather holds for the rest of the week so that I can make the drive to Vermont to go skiing on Friday with no problems!

Week 1: Dermatology

I started my first week of clinics on Dermatology, which is known mostly for it's super relaxed hours--on the first day, I worked 12:30 to 3 pm. The rest of the week picked up a little bit, and I took my first case on Tuesday morning. Both of my cases this week were dogs that were itchy and red, and we tentatively diagnosed either food allergies or atopy (environmental allergies) for both of them. It was interesting to see the difference in the approach for clients who have different outlooks on their dogs' care, and for dogs at different stages in their lives.

The main challenge so far starting out has been figuring out logistical things, like where blood draw equipment is, how to request drugs in UVIS, and what my role is exactly during appointments and rounds. It's also a little intimidating talking to clients, who are relying on you for almost all the information they'll get.

In Ithaca news, it's been snowing just a little bit nearly every day since I got back, so I wake up to a nice dusting on my car each morning. At least it keeps the snow looking fresh and not dirty, which makes Ithaca a much more beautiful place.

Aaaand, I'm back!

At the request of my dad, I'm starting up the blog again! After finishing up coursework for my third year, and then taking a nice long vacation, I'm finally starting my clinical rotations. I started on clinics a few days ago, meaning I'm working in the vet hospital at Cornell seeing patients, and I'll be there (mostly) until I graduate in May, 2012.

I'll try to post every week or so, and for the sake of client-patient confidentiality I'll change names and pertinent details so no one can be identified...hopefully I can still give you an idea of what life is like as a vet student at Cornell!