Class of 2020... how you doin?

Veterinary Science Graduate Certificate from UofI
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supershorty said:
I effectively haven't been in lab since end of November, so I've pretty much kissed my original hopes of defending at the end of this year goodbye. I don't have any techs or undergrads working for me, so all of my stuff is just completely on hold, which stinks because we're trying to wrap up a huge paper that I'd love to get off my plate so I can focus on my thesis work (it won't be a first author pub for me, but I'll be second, and it's been a really time consuming project). My PI has been super understanding of my whole situation, but I still feel like I disappoint him all the time.

*hugs Dubz*
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Ugh, I'm so sorry. I hope your health stuff starts getting back on track soon so you can get back in the lab <3 I'm glad your PI has been good about it at least. But the delay, man that sucks.

I feel you on finishing up other things so you can focus on your main stuff. I'm trying to get an outline together for the project that I actually want to do but working on the other two I've got going on (one just finished and now in analysis stage and the other about to start) has me exhausted and leaves no time for figuring out the thing I'm actually interested in. The other ones are interesting so I'm not upset that I'm doing them, I just wish they didn't take up so much of my time and mental energy!

Related, I'm doing amphibian surgery tomorrow and I'm :scared:
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supershorty said:
What are you doing?? I love surgery. I can't wait to get back to lab and get cracking on my surgeries!
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Placing drug implants intracoelomically. The original study was with subq but they tried that and uh...these guys rejected them and they all fell back out :laugh:
 
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WildZoo said:
At least work is...work. Nothing to procrastinate on there :laugh:
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Tell that to my stack of unfinished records from the past couple months! :dead:

It's been ages since I've been on here, but vet life is going okay overall. It's been stressful and the learning curve is steep, but I like my coworkers for the most part and I have pretty good mentorship. It's a really busy, fast-paced practice so I'm not sure it's the place for me long-term (work/life balance is iffy at times), but for the most part I think it will just take time for the new grad stress to dissipate.
 
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LyraGardenia said:
Tell that to my stack of unfinished records from the past couple months! :dead:

It's been ages since I've been on here, but vet life is going okay overall. It's been stressful and the learning curve is steep, but I like my coworkers for the most part and I have pretty good mentorship. It's a really busy, fast-paced practice so I'm not sure it's the place for me long-term (work/life balance is iffy at times), but for the most part I think it will just take time for the new grad stress to dissipate.
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I literally cannot leave records unfinished because the information will fall straight out of my brain. It's the one thing in life I don't procrastinate on :laugh:

Sorry things have been so crazy for you! I hope you're able to settle in and find more balance. I highly recommend working part time ;)
 
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Wellllllll a lot of your know what’s been up with me :lol:

19 more days
 
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I've been assigned my own hatchery facilities now, so I've been learning a LOT and trying to get to know all my hatchery staff. My job requires a ton of travel time and trying to find places/people, which has been difficult during covid. I've also been able to help out more on several of the wildlife projects. I do have several facilities with outbreaks of various things, so that's been a struggle. I just passed my 6 month probationary period at work, and I received good feedback, so that was a nice confidence boost. We make our own deadlines at work for everything, so it's been hard for me to stick to those, but I think I'm getting into the swing of things.

Outside of work, my SO and I took a cross country skiing lesson last weekend and went on this awesome snowshoe adventure. Trying to enjoy the snow/winter weather as much as possible, but I'm definitely a warm weather person.
 
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It’s been 2 weeks now since I began a new career in shelter medicine and I’m not really sure why I didn’t just start with this instead of going to GP lol. I might have a unicorn job. It’s nice to know what actual mentorship feels like. It’s nice to have respectful support staff. And an HR department (if you know you know). The quality of medicine is fantastic here but yet still practical. Oh and even it’s more money than I was making in GP! I don’t think even if I wasn’t wildly unhappy with my first job I could have turned this opportunity down. Given it’s a county run shelter the county can move slow with important things and there’s some superfluous training sessions but that’s the only cons so far. I’m still waiting for the catch.

Truly, if you are unhappy in a job, don’t be afraid to look for other opportunities. I found this one just browsing after a particularly rough day. No regrets!
 
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itsrocky said:
It’s been 2 weeks now since I began a new career in shelter medicine and I’m not really sure why I didn’t just start with this instead of going to GP lol. I might have a unicorn job. It’s nice to know what actual mentorship feels like. It’s nice to have respectful support staff. And an HR department (if you know you know). The quality of medicine is fantastic here but yet still practical. Oh and even it’s more money than I was making in GP! I don’t think even if I wasn’t wildly unhappy with my first job I could have turned this opportunity down. Given it’s a county run shelter the county can move slow with important things and there’s some superfluous training sessions but that’s the only cons so far. I’m still waiting for the catch.

Truly, if you are unhappy in a job, don’t be afraid to look for other opportunities. I found this one just browsing after a particularly rough day. No regrets!
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I'm always excited to see someone else fall in love with shelter med :biglove:
 
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Thinking of swapping from an MSc to a PhD... my supervisor is like the chillest being on the planet so it won't be crazy stressful I imagine, and then I will have the maximum credentials I would need to teach at a vet school, which is what I really want to do. Only con is it would be another 1-2 years of grad student salary, but I don't think that's too terrible considering we're pretty well established here now. Anybody have any sage life advice for me? :laugh: (un-sage life advice also welcomed).

Also I'm thinking of buying a horse on my line of credit... lmao. Feel free to roast me for that financial decision :laugh:
 
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SkiOtter said:
Are there photos of said horse 👀
And I mean, is it really that bad of a financial decision when you don’t have to pay board fees :laugh:
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Is a bebbe! I mean it's a pretty bad financial decision with how much she will cost :whistle:
 
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Buying animals on a credit line is definitely an eek decision. But, hey, it is your line of credit to do what you want with and as long as you can pay for veterinary costs of said suicidal tendency animal... then that decision is all yours and I say go for it, but if you're going to have to tap into a limited credit line every time for vet care, might be wiser to wait a bit.
 
SkiOtter said:
Shes a little butt high though. Might have to lop off the back hooves or get her some stilts for the front end to even her out :laugh:
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I mean she was only 6 months in that photo :laugh: She'll even out hahaha

DVMDream said:
Buying animals on a credit line is definitely an eek decision. But, hey, it is your line of credit to do what you want with and as long as you can pay for veterinary costs of said suicidal tendency animal... then that decision is all yours and I say go for it, but if you're going to have to tap into a limited credit line every time for vet care, might be wiser to wait a bit.
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Ohhhh don't worry, this is going against every fibre of my being lol. My partner and I have had a *lot* of discussions about it. If it makes you feel better about my financial decision, I have enough money in investments/savings to pay off my current LoC including the total cost of pony entirely, I have no other debt (no student loans) and I only have used 10% of my LoC at this time. It's also a student line of credit so I only pay interest until a year after I get a real job, lol. Doesn't make it a good financial decision, but maybe not quite as dire as it might seem! Also only half her purchase cost is actually going on the LoC, the rest is coming from a payout I'm getting from my side business.

But basically the reason to even look for a horse came down to:
1) I don't want to buy an older horse again because I've been burned too many times, and if I wait until I get a "real job" it will be at least 8 years before I would have another rideable horse
2) My two riding-capable horses are currently 17 and 20, so likely not going to stay rideable for 8 more years
3) Many other life factors that I won't go into lol, but mostly centered around mental health etc
 
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awesomenessity said:
I mean she was only 6 months in that photo :laugh: She'll even out hahaha



Ohhhh don't worry, this is going against every fibre of my being lol. My partner and I have had a *lot* of discussions about it. If it makes you feel better about my financial decision, I have enough money in investments/savings to pay off my current LoC including the total cost of pony entirely, I have no other debt (no student loans) and I only have used 10% of my LoC at this time. It's also a student line of credit so I only pay interest until a year after I get a real job, lol. Doesn't make it a good financial decision, but maybe not quite as dire as it might seem! Also only half her purchase cost is actually going on the LoC, the rest is coming from a payout I'm getting from my side business.

But basically the reason to even look for a horse came down to:
1) I don't want to buy an older horse again because I've been burned too many times, and if I wait until I get a "real job" it will be at least 8 years before I would have another rideable horse
2) My two riding-capable horses are currently 17 and 20, so likely not going to stay rideable for 8 more years
3) Many other life factors that I won't go into lol, but mostly centered around mental health etc
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Nah, I totally get where you're coming from hence the "it's your line of credit do what you want with it." Kind of it's you life, you only get one, do what makes you happy.

I had the opportunity to go to Disneyland Paris on credit card and didn't because I made the adult decision it was better not to....I regret it, should've just done it. That card has been long paid off many times over now.

I'm just adding in the tiny voice of make sure you've got vet care covered, if you do, rock it out. This is mostly coming from small animal world where people are duped out buying some doodle breed for $7k from a pet store on a payment plan and then they can't afford vet care because their mutt is going to end up costing them $15k once the payments are finally done. :smack:
 
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awesomenessity said:
Is a bebbe! I mean it's a pretty bad financial decision with how much she will cost :whistle:
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Does anyone have any name suggestions if I do end up buying bebbe? Her current name is :vomit: hahaha. Her registered name would have to start with a Q but I am open to nickname suggestions! So far I'm thinking like... Ducky? Cookie? Jaffa? Teddy? :laugh:
 
awesomenessity said:
Does anyone have any name suggestions if I do end up buying bebbe? Her current name is :vomit: hahaha. Her registered name would have to start with a Q but I am open to nickname suggestions! So far I'm thinking like... Ducky? Cookie? Jaffa? Teddy?
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Omg please name her Ducky
 
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Quack like a Duck for registered name and Ducky for short
 
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I like ducky. But also, Ducky made me think of land before time which led me to Petrie, which I also think is a great name for a pathologist’s horse. But maybe that’s more of a boy name than a girl name.
 
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JaynaAli said:
I like ducky. But also, Ducky made me think of land before time which led me to Petrie, which I also think is a great name for a pathologist’s horse. But maybe that’s more of a boy name than a girl name.
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Haha I was thinking of coming up with a pathology name! We already call my guy Manny Mannheimia haemolytica a lot 🤣
 
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Doing ok. Got a little rough for a bit with working too much and falling behind on research/classes, but I made sure my schedule for next month would be more reasonable. Boundaries are ~important~
 
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Been working from home since the end of April, which is fine and all but I'm not sure how much work is actually getting done :whistle: I can't believe the spring/summer is half over already, I need to buckle down and actually work :laugh: I'm supposed to have a paper written by the end of the summer and so far I have like... 25% of a results section lol.
 
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If you asked me two days ago I would've said pretty good. But today I felt like a terrible vet, have cried in my car that won't start, and am at the start of an on call weekend.

So, you know, varies by the day :laugh:
 
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Reviving these threads is trendy right now. How is everyone doing?

Nothing much has changed for me. Still working part-time and doing PhD things the rest of the time. My first author paper comes out next month. (it's available online already). I've cut back to 15 hours a week at work, which meant only 6 shifts this month. It's been much better for my mental health and like...actually getting things done for lab/school. Someone thought it would be a good idea to make me take a class on statistical modeling. And there is some research stuff that is driving me NUTS right now, but I'm hanging in there.

One of my best friends moved back to do a residency, so I might actually have an (in person) social life again. Maybe. Like, once a month lol
 
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I'm doing alright! I spent most of the summer burnt out as hell, despite not really having much "work" to do. Just zero motivation, it was freaking hot, and I didn't want to be on the planet lol. But I'm feeling quite a bit better now, thank goodness! I have a meeting with my supervisor tomorrow to figure out what my next chapter of my thesis will entail, so hopefully we can come up with something interesting! So far our discussions about this next chapter have been "we'll figure it out when we get there" which doesn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence when the application deadline for our major funding source is in a month :laugh: I also have a case report accepted that should be published soon, which will be my first first author publication :biglove:
 
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supershorty said:
drowning send halp pls
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WildZoo said:
Can't am also drown
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Will send my tiniest lifeguard who makes sure I don’t drown in the shower

658D2E30-4224-4F8F-AC33-571AE6122B37.jpeg
 
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