Improving Vet Student? | 3rd year GYG blog

29/10/23 Big lecture write-up drive today

I decided today I would write up as many lectures as I could handle and I've done a good job of it. I wrote up one of the lectures for next week (other isn't out yet), all 5 behaviour lectures for the week after (didn't take too long as concepts aren't really difficult) and now just finished 2 anaemia lectures for week after too. I'm actually quite interested in anaemia diseases in general as my old dog had IMHA (ended up getting pts) and I would love to manage animals with it one day and hopefully have some better outcomes, so I spent quite a bit longer writing up those lectures as was doing further research alongside and it is a lot of new concepts and words etc. I've ran out of steam to do any more work now but all the other lectures for the next 2 weeks aren't up yet and that was the more 'pressing' work I had to do anyway. Tomorrow I've got a pretty busy day, 9-11 clinical skills, 11-12 second lot of anaesthesia MCQs, 12-1 portfolio support session and 3-5 anaesthesia scenarios, all of which are practicals or seminars so are compulsory. Tomorrow's clinical skills session is an OSPE practice so usually that finishes within an hour so I might have a little time to do a bit of work then and later between 1-3, I think I'll try to do work in those times so I don't have to worry in the evening. I will probably try to write up lectures if any come available (I'm hoping the one for this Wednesday does) but otherwise will probably get on with summary tables.

31/10/23 Some progress with research project today

I must've been very tired when updating last night as I forgot to mention I went to the river of light last evening and it was really cool. We didn't get to see it all as it shuts off at 9 and we got there pretty late but I hadn't actually seen it in previous years and really wanted to. I don't know if I'm at the point of a little burn out as I have been working much more for this time of the year than I have previously as I'm not feeling 'right' but can't place my finger on it. I will be allowing myself to have the entire long weekend free of uni work unless something urgent comes up. Had a pretty lazy day but I did some work for my research project. I decided to move the goal posts a little this week from what I initially planned. I emailed the research associate helping asking for more information on how I can access the platform I'm going to actually use as I need a login from the institute and I don't think it's readily available for undergraduates, she has replied saying she'll look into it. I thought it wouldn't hurt to get the actual questionnaire up and running on the platform in case that takes a little while, and then I can immediately begin to distribute it once I get ethical approval. I also made a Gantt chart on excel as we have to have 'evidence' for what we do weekly and that was one of the formats suggested - I don't think it was necessarily made clear enough in the beginning (as there is also a format on Teams they prefer but it's too late to start now) that we have to do things like that to score well in the 'attitude' towards the project marking bit which is worth 25%. I was a bit stressed about this and kept putting it off as I've not really used excel much at all and barely knew what a Gantt chart was, but I think I actually made a pretty decent one all things considered and it only took about an hour. I've also decided that while I obviously can't get on with writing up the rest of the project properly without results, I could brainstorm some ideas for the bits of discussion which won't change - e.g. the biases of just using certain years of Liverpool vet students, questionnaire designs etc. Hopefully this cuts down a bit of time and stress I have to spend writing up later in the term.

Unfortunately the lecture for tomorrow was only released for a couple hours yesterday and is no longer up so I haven't been able to write it up but as it is only 1 lecture it isn't a big deal - I reckon they've messed the page up accidentally trying to upload a video from yesterday or something. Tomorrow I've got lectures 11-1 and then horse riding 5:30-6:30 so I may do some work in between but tbh I have done all my 'main' things and got ahead already. Tonight I'm going to the cinema to see 5 nights at Freddy's in Southport with my housemates so hopefully will be a nice trip out.

Hi, I just thought I'd let you know that you can search for the lectures on CANVAS via the search bar, so even if the page isn't available to click on you can still manage to find them. You often have to be quite precise about what you are looking for though so it can take a little time to find the PowerPoints or PDFs. I hope that helps!

Subjects in third year:

Info on Liverpool as a vet uni:

Info on how exams are run:

My general tips for vet school applicants:

My general tips for starting (and existing if you find it useful lol) vet students:

Glad things are going well!! Which is more than I can say for the new format TSR.
Completely impractical to use on a phone. Hate it!!

11/11/23 Forgot to update yesterday but have been catching up well

Yesterday I went into lectures then did a bit of work before clinical skills. I did the summary table for the skill I was doing that day which was asepsis 3 which doesn't really have loads of new theory, and finished going over my summary tables for respiratory NSF from the last 2 years. Today I updated my anaesthesia + analgesia summary tables with what I think is the last part of it (triage and stabilisation) so those are all done. Then I went to Starbucks and wrote up the parasitology introduction lecture then 4 of the pathology lectures (5th isn't really a 'writing up' type lecture as is going through histopathology) which took a while as the pathology lectures are very new content heavy. Overall I am still enjoying the pathology content though, there is a LOT of new diseases and their mechanisms etc but I find that interesting so it's not really a chore - I'm not so much of a fan of the histology aspect so I intend to spend more time on that in the next week though. I think we are now back to doing fortnights on each of the systems as we've done in NSF the last 2 years but this time with pathology so I will try to push my 'extra' bits during those weeks, i.e. also reading the textbook, making my summary tables etc because it is harder to understand and if I slack on that it'll take ages to catch up (unlike for MOD and other subjects which I don't mind making the summary tables in bigger holidays if I have to). Tomorrow I think I will focus on writing up the 5 lectures for Monday so I'm not worried about being behind and getting most out of going to the lectures (I've been actually focusing fairly well in them recently which I've never achieved in previous years). I have got a few more responses from my year on the questionnaire, I'm at 30 responses overall now so not terrible and I'm not going to bother people to fill it out at the weekend. Which is good because I've been getting flashbacks to when I was checking my email every 2 min when applying to vet school but now instead with checking questionnaire responses plus the NHS app for my blood test results lol.

Goals for week of 13/11/23:

Hi

Love reading your blog.

I’m a first year at RVC and starting my revision .

How do you construct your summary tables ? Are they based on the LO? Is there a certain way you right up the lectures?

Just trying to find the best way to get this all into my old brain lol

Thanks so much