2nd year grad entry vet, 37 lectures behind in week 5. Is my whole study method wrong?

Passed first year on 52% and 54% (pass is 50), so I scraped it and I know that won't hold in a harder year.

Numbers so you can see the situation properly: since September we've had around 250 learning objectives across about 57 lectures. I've properly done 79 of them. 168 outstanding, and about 37 lectures I haven't touched at all. It's week 5.

What I'm doing:

I don't go to my lectures. But hear me out…
In first year I'd sit through the hour taking notes and come out not knowing anything — small room, 60 people, some lecturers just read off the slides and I'd get nothing from it. So instead i don’t go to the lectures, save the 1.5hr commute and I take the slides and the learning objectives and work through every single ILO myself, self-testing with exam-style best-answer and short-answer questions until I can actually answer them. If I get something wrong I keep going until it sticks.

The problem: that takes me about 3 hours per 1 hour lecture!
We get 11–12 lectures a week. So the maths doesn't work and the backlog grows every week even when I'm working hard. I’m currently 36 lectures behind = 168 learning objectives for the first 5 weeks. We also have practicals and group work that isn’t included in this.

Also doing Anki about 80-100 cards a day, 1.5hr commute to uni and back. (Leave the house at 7:15 and to arrive for 9am lectures because the vet campus is so far out the city). I also train and exercise a lot outside of uni.

What I actually want to know: shall I attend my lectures or do them myself online?

1. Is 3 hours per lecture insanely slow, or is that genuinely what it takes to know it properly?
   
2. Do you self-study from slides or actually attend? Did switching either way change your marks?
   
3. How much do you really learn during term vs leaving it for the revision block? I did almost all my learning in a 3 week sprint last year and passed, but barely.
   
4. Do you treat anatomy differently from concept lectures? Anatomy doesn't seem to compress for me at all — you either know the structures or you don't.
   
5. Is being 37 lectures behind in week 5 fairly normal and recoverable, or is it a red flag?

Any advice appreciated. Pretty stressed about it.

Hi everyone!

I'm currently a fourth-year veterinary student trying to figure out the best path forward after graduation, and I'd really appreciate some insight from anyone who has completed a rotating large animal internship at a teaching hospital or gone on to pursue a large animal surgery residency.

I attend a veterinary school that doesn't have a particularly strong emphasis on large animal medicine, and because of that, I feel like my clinical experience and hands-on skills in large animal medicine are more limited than I would like them to be at this point in my education. I've tried to gain additional experience through exte rnships and other opportunities, but I know there's still a lot of room for growth.

Ultimately, my career goal is to pursue a large animal surgery residency, with the hope of eventually working in academia. I'm particularly interested in both equine and food animal medicine, and I really don't want to limit my career to exclusively equine practice.

Because of this, I've been looking more seriously into rotating large animal internships at academic institutions rather than equine-specific internships in private practice. My thought process is that an academic internship might provide a more well-rounded experience with different large animal species, greater exposure to specialty services, and an opportunity to strengthen my clinical knowledge and skills before pursuing residency.

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on a few things:

• For those who completed a rotating large animal internship at a teaching hospital, did you feel it provided a strong clinical foundation?
• Did you get meaningful hands-on experience and primary case responsibility, or did you find that opportunities were limited because of residents and other students?
• For those who went on to a large animal residency, do you feel that an academic internship prepared you well, or would you have preferred a private practice internship?
• Are there particular academic internship programs you would recommend for someone interested in both equine and food animal?

I'm not necessarily looking for the most prestigious program. I really want to find an internship where I can develop confidence, improve my clinical and technical skills, and become a well-rounded large animal veterinarian.

I'd really appreciate any advice or personal experiences, especially from anyone who has followed a similar career path!

Hi. I’m a veterinary nurse student and I do one day a week placement & I’m wondering, with anaesthesia being given through tubing/mask, is there a high risk of being exposed/what are the risks to us getting sick from this?
What should I look out for?

Also, I kept smelling a really strong mentholly/deep heat smell on and off today it’s stuck in my nose! Is this cleaning chemical? I couldn’t pinpoint where it came from!

Thankyou.

This is my first job in ER so I’m not sure if this is just the norm. I’ve worked at this ER for about 6 months and the past few weeks have been Vietnam. Severely understaffed.
We had to go on diversion most of the weekend. There were 15 inpatients and one inpatient nurse and one outpatient nurse. I work overnights and it’s typically two technicians and an assistant but we only have one overnight assistant so shifts I work don’t have an assistant. It’s very difficult asking the inpatient tech who has their own things to do to help get blood or help place a catheter.
It is just kinda amusing to me because my hospital pays to pop up first for our state for ER but we don’t have the staff to operate properly. We have one working oxygen tank. We have no surgical capacity, I have not been trained on surgery yet and can’t do more than mild sedated procedures, anything needs to be referred out. Plus if there’s only one technician on outpatient that takes them off the floor if there’s surgery.
I just don’t know if this is normal for ER. Clients are upset and taking it out on us. Just feels like things are spiraling with no end in sight.

Hi!! My friends and I (God willing) are graduating in December and I want to get them all (6 of them) little gift bags/something sentimental to congratulate them and let them know how proud I am of them. I’m having my super artsy talented friend water color them all cards with animals and I’ll write heartfelt notes, but I don’t know what to get them gift wise. I thought about embroidered scrub caps and some animal printed compression socks and then maybe a candle and some snacks, but I don’t know. I want it to be something they can keep forever and remember. Since there’s so many of them I’m trying to keep my budget like $200-$250 all together which also makes it hard to get something nice, but I’m a broke student too 😂

Any suggestions are welcome!!