What better way to wind down after a hectic first week getting to grips with rotations than to go and work our brains harder by attending a conference!? The BSAVA conference to be exact!
I’ll keep it short and sweet as I am currently meant to be preparing for today’s behaviour seminar not faffing about on my blog! Myself and two of my housemates; Beth and Sasha pottered down to Birmingham to attend the British Small Animal Veterinary Association congress. Ironically none of us actually have a particular affinity for small animal work, but we’re a little bit geeky and like conferences so went along anyway! Personally I was hoping it might help shed some light on the various body systems I feel I should know more about and help me get through my first block of rotations which is predominantly small animal based.
…..I’ll skip the bit about what I actually learnt at the conference as though I find the ins and outs of chronic diarrhoea in dogs riveting, I can appreciate to the general public this may not be blogging material!
We were all a little bit disgruntled that we found ourselves stuck inside in lectures rather than outside in the glorious Mediterranean heatwave Birmingham had decided to throw at us. Though as vet students, spending most of our lives inside sat at a desk, we were used to having to sacrifice sunbathing for books. We did take full advantage of the freebies being given out by the exhibitors though, and I am the proud owner of 26 pens and I am sure I have put on about 6 pounds due to the sheer amount of chocolate I inhaled.
On the Saturday evening the venue was transformed into a fairground with street food, comedy acts, circus performers, live bands and of course…. face painting! I inadvertently got myself into a weird man sandwich with a number of the performers, much to the amusement of everyone else. We did some incredibly energetic jigging to a folk band with a lot of Irish influence and drank a lot of cheap wine. Though I have to say the majority of my alcohol intake was actually influenced by Sasha’s mum who had an excellent supply of port!
So…. All in all our geeky weekend was quite a fun one! I’d definitely advise vet students to start dipping their toes into conferences before graduating, it’s a great way to network, figure out your interests ….. and stock up on pens for the next 5 years of vet school!
If you want to read more about my adventures in vet school check them out here https://thejetsetvet.com/category/vetting/
Check out BSAVA website here…. https://www.bsava.com
