Hi, my name is Hadley Murphy and I am from Telluride High School. On Tuesday, I started my veterinary medicine internship at Kansas State University (KSU) here in Manhattan, Kansas.
The Veterinary Health Center Small Animal Building at Kansas State University
First day!
One of the main things I would like to get out of this internship is to see if this is something I want to pursue as a career. Thus far, I could not be more in love. The adrenaline and movement of the Veterinary Health Center (VHC) and my desire to know everything I can learn makes me want to start my career right now.
My first day started out with meeting Dr. Harkin, one of the small animal clinicians, who would be in charge of my internship for the first three weeks on small animals. After being introduced and asking a few questions, I was promptly taken to the small animal conference room for morning rounds, where I was thrown into the chaos of an insanely fast-paced work environment, that I can only hope to have a small understanding of when I leave this place. The general disorientation of navigating the endless maze of identical hallways and to learn names and extraordinarily long medical words that fly right over my head was combined with the full-on, fast pace that this hospital is in constantly. On my very first day there were so many cases, it was hard to comprehend it all. On my first day I learned what a code-ten is. A code-ten begins with an overhead page “code ten, all available medical students report to emergency with a gurney,” followed by every available vet student sprinting to wherever the overhead page told them to go with whatever they were told to bring. The animal, which is in a critically unstable state, is then rushed to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). There, they treat the animal and do everything in their power to stabilize and save the patient they have just received. There were five of these on my first day!
My oversized lab coat.
The rest of the week slowed down gradually, and everything settled into more of a normal pace. Although, I frequently still got lost in the hospital. The clinicians, residents, students, and techs are some of the most fun, amazing, and passionate people I have ever met. They love what they do and they go above and beyond to help and to teach me. I have learned more in the past week than ever imaginable and I have seen some exceptionally intriguing and unique cases. Everything I learn I write down in a small notebook that I keep in the pocket of my lab coat, which is four sizes too big for me. I have found that it is not physically possible to ask enough questions in a day to keep up, so my time away from the vet school is spent with food, sleep, and most importantly Google. It has been a fantastic first week and, I never thought I’d say this, but, I can’t wait to start again on Monday.
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