Four years down and one to go! I’m writing this on the flight home, wishing teleporters were a reality and I could just zap myself from one side of the world to the other instead of being trapped in a seat for over 12 hours. I’m lucky this time though; I have three seats all to my self and stretched out for a little nap at the start of the flight. Can’t wait to be back home.

Exams were rubbish (my friend says that is my favorite new word) this year and I’m still waiting to see if I passed. Supposedly they will be out on Monday, but I’m not going to hold my breath. Since we don’t have pass/fail orals this year (you just have to resit the exam in Aug if you fail) they don’t have to get the marking done as quickly so we are left hanging in the balance. It was a mess trying to figure out what notes to bring home to study just in case I do have to resit – especially with Zoom airline’s 40lbs luggage weight limit. I have a file folder box about 18in deep completely filled with my notes from this year alone.

The written exam consisted of one long essay and 10 short essays in two hours. Then we had a lunch break and a section of multiple choice in the afternoon. This year they decided (without telling us) to change from focusing on the major topics to hitting more of the small/random stuff. After four years of studying here that test made me feel like a complete idiot. There wasn’t a single essay topic I was confident about. And I knew this stuff pretty well! Thankfully, everyone else in the class felt the same so we are just waiting to see how easy/hard they mark it.

Last week we had the second part of the companion animal exams which is a practical assessment called OSCE’s. There were ten stations including things like a role play consult with an owner, radiology analysis, physical exam of a dog, colic decision making, cytology interpretation, equine upper airway conditions, etc. I think radiology is the only station I failed (you can fail 5 out of 10) so I’m not worried about passing that portion.

This summer will be incredibly busy as I start my rotations at the university and also start to fit in my remaining EMS. I start off with 6 weeks at Banfield in Bellingham and then fly back to Glasgow for my farm animal rotation in a practice outside Glasgow. The next two weeks I am working in the vet school’s small animals hospital and then I see a few days with a dermatologist and a vet dentist. After that I’m flying to Belgium for two weeks to see small animal practice and then back to Glasgow for the official start of final year.

That’s all supposing I pass my exams J Hope you are having a wonderful summer!

P.S. Just found out that I passed! Yea!