Clinical Pathology:
The hours are excellent. The rounds are practical. The lab technicians teach you how to make blood smears, which is much harder than it looks. You get to see the blood smear "Box o' Shame", which includes some truly epic specimens of failure. You will finally be able to differentiate segmented neutrophils from bands (well, sometimes), and learn what a monocyte is.
Dermatology:
Your first day of Derm starts at 12:30. Need I say more? You see patients occasionally. There is almost no busywork. You learn useful things about common skin diseases, and all of the service chiefs are jolly and/or extraordinarily and hilariously strange. There are never any inpatients or emergencies. This is a good rotation to catch up on sleep and study for boards.
Emergency and Critical Care:
The hours are actually not that bad, except for the overnights (which totally blow). I don't know about you, but my brain straight up rejects rational thinking when I'm on a reversed sleep schedule. Fun! The techs are extra badass. You never know what the fuck is going to happen. There will be really slow stretches where you will putz around on VetPrep for six hours, and then seven severely injured and/or dying patients will arrive in the space of five minutes. You will get pissed and shat upon regularly. Bring extra scrubs!
General Practice:
Oooooooh this is a great rotation. You get to do actual surgery. You get to make decisions about patient care. You also do mind-bendingly large amounts of paperwork. The service chief is a quaint and quirky old fellow who knows, um, everything.
Large Animal Medicine:
This one is seasonal. Spring? Septic foaaaaals! Summer? Septic foals, colics, and horses with diarrhea! Fall? More colics! And Potomac Horse Fever! Winter? Not a damn thing. All the time? ADR cows, crias with choanal atresia/failure to thrive, and the calves from all the c-sections. And colitis. You will see some really, really weird shit (lymphoma in a pig, can I get a what what). You will never leave the hospital. More specifically, you will never leave the isolation ward.
Large Animal Orthopedic Surgery:
The doctors are fucking rockstars. You may have six cases at once. Do not feed the wrong hay to the throat horses. You will spend years in the OR wearing lead under your surgery gown if you're doing an arthroscopy. You will get to help put some insane fractures back together. Hope you like racehorses!
Large Animal Soft Tissue Surgery:
Ooooohhhh this is a fun rotation. Mass removals, colic surgery, all the weird dental shit (dental week is a crazy week!), eye surgeries (yes) and wound repairs. Castrations! You will castrate legions of horses. The rounds are fantastic. It is very important to the surgeons that you pass the hemostats with the tips up. TIPS UP, MOTHERFUCKERS! And know your instrument names cold. I am not kidding.
Small Animal Soft Tissue Surgery:
It is almost impossible for the hours to be any worse than they are on this rotation:
***Actual conversation between group of students and chief of service***:
Chief: Okay, so you know we don't have an overnight ER student anymore to give the 2 am doses of hydro to your spay and neuter dogs. This means that you guys will have to come in at 2 am* to dose the dogs yourselves.
Student: Hey, what if we use a pain management protocol that doesn't require 2 am meds?
Chief: Nope, we're going to stick to the way we've always done it. We're** just going to have to suffer. Sorry guys!
*this is after regular 14-16 hour days in the hospital, mind.
**clearly, this chief had some confusion regarding the meaning of pronouns. I refuse to accept "we're" as the correct choice unless she is also in the hospital medicating a rambunctious pit bull at 2 in the morning.