The Undomestic Goddess

All over campus, the assisting staff has gone on strike. That means no janitors, no librarians, no campus rec, no food services and no veterinary technicians.

Basically, as a student, you are being screwed.

As a fourth year vet student though, you are being @#$%'ed up the @$$.

No technicians means that we've had to shut down our vet hospital to nothing but extreme emergencies and the odd case here and there. Our ICU is completely being run by students and interns and residents on a 24 hour basis and we're running out of medical supplies because all the medical supply delivery companies can't cross the picket line. We're running out of IV fluids, incontinence pads, gauze and suture.

In other words, imagine a hospital with no nurses, no cleaning staff, and barely any medical supplies left. We're limited in the number of surgeries we can use cus the ladies who normally autoclave our equipment are gone and no one knows how to use the new autoclave machine.

Our board certified clinicians are all on their hands and knees cleaning dog poop and kennels. Our academic dean had to go out and get toilet paper cus we ran out. All the large animal surgeons were mucking out stalls while the board certified anesthetist mopped the floor. Our school finance administrator was sweeping the floors today and the poor clinical associates were in the basement doing laundry so we would at least have clean blankets for the patients to use.

Our pharmacist finally drove out to get us more incontinence pads cus we ran out and were using towels to clean up dog diarrhea yesterday.

And amidst all this, the fourth years are trying to learn and pass our board exams which begin November 12th.

Veterinary services are not considered a "necessary service" and as such, nothing has been done to help keep the hospital running like normal. Some crazy person or another wrote an article in the campus newspaper about how inconvenient it is to have a strike because necessary services like libraries, study halls and- now get this- "the Tim Hortons on campus" have been shut down. Not a word about how my entire class is getting screwed over cus the vet hospital is falling apart.

In other words, to most people on campus, the Tim hortons is more important than the fact that colicking horses are now being sent to Edmonton and all the other vet clinics in town now have to have 24 hour service and extra techs in order to deal with all the emergencies and sick animals we've had to turn away from our doors.

Bizarre rumours of shutting down the hospital completely and cancelling our fourth year have been passed around. Other rumours about having us extend our school year into next summer have also surfaced. The clinicians and faculty all had a meeting this morning about our fates but are keeping mum about it.

Meanwhile, the strike continues.

The surgery students have been practicing on cadavers. As an anesthesia student right now, I spent half my morning practicing local lidocaine blocks on dead cats.

My afternoon was spent helping out the 3rd years on their sheep labs. All I can say is thank goodness it was in the protocols that the sheep were to be euthanized at the end of the lab. At one point, one of the 3rd years dropped the forceps on the floor and we had to keep using them after we picked them up because no more sterile instruments were left.

Anyhow, there is some good to all of this. Since none of the university cafeterias or food services are open, the Uganda group has taken advantage of the situation to raise some money for the AIDS orphanage we're going to be visiting in Uganda next February and tomorrow, we're gonna have a big coffee/bake sale so people don't eat up all the food in the vending machines any more.

This means that instead of cramming for my boards like I have been doing for the past week, I am spending my night baking cherry chip cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and rich devil chocolate cupcakes with milk chocolate icing with lovely heart-shaped sprinkles.

Naturally, it's all coming out of Betty Crocker/Duncan Hines cardboard boxes and all I have to do is add some water and eggs. What did you think?! That the girl who lives off cereal and microwave dinners was actually going to try to bake? I aint gonna lie to ya. I aint no Martha.

And so, I must bid you all good night as my cupcakes need frosting and my brain needs more filling.

Back to cherry chip cupcakes and the Merck Vet Manual for me.

Goodness only knows how much more I can take of this.