Externship at Mizzou

Well since I had to keep a journal for my externship at the U of Missouri, I decided to just copy and paste it in here for an update.  Enjoy!

Day 1 (12/16/14):

Arrived too early

Talked to Craig - went over program, exciting

Talked to Shelly, got administrative things done

Talked to Aaron Ericsson? about potential research projects (mouse poo ie microbiome or zebrafish behavior)

Met Marcia - offered to drive me to ACUC annual review

Went to ACUC annual review - disagreements, scientist vs vet, very entertaining

Met other externs at OAR, went to VA imaging - like a sales pitch to do a PhD in his lab, very excited about his stuff

Long day, excited for the rest

Contacted Sarah Hooper and Cat Hagan about setting up time - may do some bat bleeding

Day 2 (12/17/14)

Morning watched 2 current resident presentations on mouse strains - some info I knew, some I didn't (liked the history of Jackson Lab), asked a question about audiogenic seizures and cochlear degeneration, then had to leave early

Did the Repro lab - Loved it - but wish there had enough mice for us each to do our own.  was a little frustrating when Ava claimed she did the right testicle but actually did the left.  Would also have been cool to actually insert the pipet into the infundibulum.  The whole concept and procedures were really interesting

Afternoon meeting was cancelled (they were busy ranking candidates for the residency program next year, hope Mitch gets it)

Spent the rest of the afternoon shadowing Dan and picking his brain about his path to residency (since he's a MN grad like me).  Got to see a bunch of adorable dachsund puppies and a muscular dystrophy dog (Captain) and help with blood draw/radiographs.  Also got to see a bat room and a cat room (gave Clavamox to post-spay cats). 

More talking with the current residents (super helpful). 

Day 3 (12/18/14)

Early morning at the swine center.  Shower in facility - that was new!  Had a long productive morning shadowing Megan and Mike Linville.  He was very informative, giving me the tour and the history of the facilities.

Went to the OAR holiday party - lots of good food and company.  Got the chance to talk with more of the vets and residents and watch a fun game being played. 

Following the party went to a live internet cast of primate rounds from Tulane.  Heard about some really interesting cases of granulomatous inflammation in some macaques. 

From there I went to shadowing Jake in the last of the animal facilities where I got to play with dachshund puppies, help restrain one for an ear cleaning and cytology, and looked at some fighting mouse wounds including a mouse who had lost his entire penis and had a random hole in his abdomen that he peed through.  Super weird/gross.  Ended the day looking at the slide from the dog ear and possibly seeing some yeast. 

Day 4 (12/19/14)

Later morning thank goodness.  Started with OAR rounds, basically updates from all the different factions.  Pretty interesting, and since I'd already toured all 3 vet cares I actually knew about all of the cases they talked about, which was fun. 

Talked with Lon and Pat about ACQA and got quizzed on OLAW, USDA, AWA, and The Guide.  Also learned more about the structure of Mizzou's animal stuff.

Met with Dr. Bryda about my research project.  Unfortunately not what I was hoping for - more PCR and benchtop than anything with animals. Still should be a good learning experience. Set up training stuff for Monday.

Joined the other externs for a mouse necropsy/parasitology lab.  Using pet mice - found tapeworms, pinworms, mites, and all sorts of protozoa.  So gross!  Never getting pet mice from a store again.  Very cool and interesting though.

Weekend activities:

Dog park, hiking, Hobbit with first year residents Dan, Jake, and Megan

Day 5 (12/22/14):

Morning came to learn PCR with Miriam (but she'd already finished) so then went over and watched Dr. Men do zygote injections.  Very cool and finicky - he thinks its tedious

Came back to the lab and saw the PCR didn't work.  Set up a new one myself with Miriam's guidance using the Accuprime kit.

Had a window of time so went over to ARC to help Sarah Hooper with bat stuff!  Helped take pictures under UV light and then rehydrating (SQ injections of LRS) and feeding (mealworms!) the bats.  Very cool.

Back to run gel on my PCR to see if it worked.  Started doing the TA cloning on the sample, plated the bacteria for overnight.

Day 6 (12/23/14):

Morning was going to help out with bat stuff again but because of their late night they didn't get started until late.

Spent the morning reading background information about my research project (CRISPR in rats) as well as one of my books about veterinary surgery.  Also emailed the rest of the people I hadn't gotten ahold of yet and scheduled up almost all of the rest of my activities.

In the afternoon I continued working with Anagha on my research project. Unfortunately the previous day's work didn't turn out, so we repeated the TA cloning with positive and negative controls as well as taking into account information from Invitrogen.  Plated the bacteria again and hopefully there will be some growth tomorrow.

Day 7 (12/24/14):

Update with my research project and we had colony growth!  Waiting to set up the next part until next week (since we are both off tomorrow and I'm off on Friday).  Spent the rest of the morning updating my PowerPoint presentation and doing more background reading into the CRISPR technology.

Did send out a text to the remaining first year residents but unfortunately they didn't have much going on either.

Weekend activities:

Drove back up to Minnesota for Christmas with the family

Day 8 (12/29/14):

Long weekend but back in the saddle. Started the morning working on PowerPoint, then got an update from Anagha about the project.  She ran through the next steps of the project and the timeline and we worked out a plan.

Then had a slide review with Dr. Marcia Hart.  Very interesting and informative!  Saw a few interesting cases and got to review some histology. See notes in notebook for more info.

Rat and mouse handling lab with Megan.  Very fun, though not enough mice/rats for us each to have our own.  Megan managed to blind stick a rat vena cava and impress us all, no one else could hit it.   Fun and informative.

Day 9 (12/30/14):

Woke up feeling like I had swallowed a bag of gravel and broken glass, which were currently occupying space in my joints and no sleep.  Elected to not bring my illness into surgical suites (daschund spay/neuters were on the schedule) and attempted to aid my immune system with extra sleep.

Came in the afternoon and had an extended vivarium tour at Discovery Ridge with Jason Huntsperger.  A lot of good information about facility management and design.  Went well over the scheduled time, but very interesting.

Was going to then go to learn about rodent colonoscopy with Sarah Hansen but she had been in other rodent facilities that day so we had to reschedule for Friday.  Finishing the day with some more research into my research project.

Day 10 (12/31/14):

Watched Megan do a mass removal on a MN mini pig - really black mass! 

Then followed Sarah Hansen over to check up on the puppies that were sterilized yesterday, they were all doing well.  Soaked another dog's sore foot and also ran a fecal float on the other puppies in the litter (the ones that didn't get surgery had loose stool).  Didn't see anything on the fecal.

Got a protocol from Pat Farrar to review and set up a meeting time to go over that with her.

Also set up a more concrete plan to meet with Sarah Hansen on Friday for the rodent colonoscopy. 

Got an update from Anagha about my project - basically on hiatus until Monday since we're at a good stopping point and she's taking some days off.

Day 11 (1/1/15):

Helped Megan do her daily checks - first the pig with the mass removal and then the puppies that were recently sterilized. 

Spent the rest of the day out and about Columbia, reading over the animal protocol from Pat Farrar, and working on my project.

Day 12 (1/2/15):

Started the day working with Sarah Hansen all morning.  First I helped her get things ready and watched her do 3 rat colonoscopies.  After that I helped with the necropsies and tissue sample collections along with Nick Harrison. 

We got pizza and then headed over to OAR.

From there, Liz, Dan, Nick, and I went to Middlebush Farm and accompanied Lon Dixon and posse on the ACUC inspection.  Finding expired needles was pretty much the only thing of note (and then the discussion about how and why things like needles expire).

That pretty much summed up the day.  Busy last week coming up but excited as well.

Weekend Activities:

Drove over to St. Louis for the day - visited the zoo and the Arch.

On Sunday went to the dog park and ran into Sarah Hansen with her dog and daughter. 
Day 13 (1/5/15):

Starting my last week fairly slowly.  Slow morning, then had to decide whether to hit up the 2nd year Lab Animal Medicine class or stick around with the other externs and go to a class for the residents on infectious diseases.  Decided to stay here, they talked me into it by reminding me that day 1 they would probably be going over the syllabus for the class, which isn't something I really need to know.

Class is interesting, talking about disease outbreaks and how to handle them. Given a case to look at and questions to address. Talked about approved vendors, how to address the issue with PI's, talking about budget concerns, risks for exceptions, disease transmission, etc.  Basically ended with "do some research and come back on Wednesday with ideas." Interesting class, will get more out of it on Wednesday I think.

I then went to the Pathology PBL class and realized there wasn't much point to being there - all the presentations will be happening next week after I'm gone, but it was nice to meet some new people.

After that I had a meeting with Anagha to discuss my research project and presentation.  She helped me flesh out the presentation a bit more with some more background info on the specific goals of the lab and we discussed future plans for my mini project.

Spent the rest of the afternoon working on my presentation.

Day 14 (1/6/15):

This morning I started off talking to Dana Weir about facility management.  It was a really interesting discussion and not something I had given a lot of thought about until recently.  We ended up going more over the Disease Outbreak PBL that had been discussed with the first year residents yesterday.

Then went to the ACUC meeting, not quite as hot button as the last one but still really interesting and fun to watch.

From there I spent the rest of the day with Beth Ahner and James Cook's lab watching orthopedic surgeries on dogs.  It was really interesting - especially seeing all t he power tools and hammer and chisel in use, not to mention seeing Dr. Cook make a new meniscus out of pig skin.  Very cool stuff, but really long day. 

Also got some feedback from Dr. Bryda about my presentation.  Will have to find some time somehow to talk with Anagha again.  Scheduling this last week has been crazy!

Day 15 (1/7/15)

Crazy busy day.  Started at Disco with Dalila and learning about her role in colony management at the MMRC.  Showed me how to do health checks, wean mice, ear tag, and take tail snips.  For all my mouse background, I was pretty slow at it!  Took a bit longer than expected but still really fun/interesting.

Then went over to the OAR and was hoping to go over my protocol review with Pat but she wasn't around.  Then went to the lab animal lecture that Jake gave about rat biology.  Made me miss my old pet rats!  Was fun hanging out with Megan, Mike, Sarah, and Dan.

Then went out to lunch with them at Panda Express - not terribly vet related but I enjoyed the company.  There's never a good chicken to rice ratio with the food there I find... always too much rice left over.

From there I met up with the other externs at OAR and we walked over to LIDR together for a talk about that facility from Travis.  Very interesting, and a bit odd to me about the security.  You can find tularemia in wild animals, but if a mouse with it goes missing the FBI gets called in.  They also keep mosquitoes there, so learning about their husbandry was grossly fascinating.

We then headed back to the trailer and waited just a little while for a tour from Craig.  Went all over the MU campus and a bit through Columbia.  Very interesting and informative - two of the other externs came a long and it was funny how little one knew about the town she'd been living in for the past 2 1/2 years.  That was really fun and basically ended the day.

Except I got some feedback from Dr Bryda about my presentation so will likely spend the rest of the evening working on that - then an early day tomorrow!

Day 16 (1/8/15):

Early day starting with the pig orthopedic surgeries.  Mostly an observatory role - interesting at first seeing the blood draw from the jugular and watching them put the pig down.  Shaving and scrubbing.  Then in the surgical suite we were basically kicked out, so that was less interesting.  Apparently they had a problem with hypertension?  The other externs and I were called upon to calcluate a CRI fluid rate for Dobutamine. Nick was called away to help Sarah and Liz and Ava were stuck with the calculations.  They got Mike Fink to help out and eventually had it figured out.  I headed out early to hit up the 2nd year Lab Animal Medicine class again.

Managed to find the room and sat in on Marcia's lecture about hamsters and gerbils.  Unsurprisingly, a lot of histo pictures :)

Spent my lunch hour working on my presentation (only got so far last night before I lost steam). 

Did a PCR lab with Dr. Bryda and Miriam.  Pretty basic stuff, and mostly had already gone over it with them for my project, but still good to get another run through and practice stuff.

Following that I polished up my presentation a bit and then had a meeting with Dr. Bryda.  We talked for over an hour about the presentation, how to format it better and add/adjust things, and future directions etc.  After that I went back to my cubicle and spent another 3 hours making her suggested changes.  Practiced it a couple of times and called it a night.

Day 17 (1/9/15) Last day :(

Started the morning off with OAR rounds.  Pretty entertaining, similar to the first time.  Got to hear more about the mouse with the mysterious hole (apparently not so mysterious a problem) and updates about puppies.

Then went to path rounds and questioned everything I ever thought I knew about gram stains.  I swear it was purple for positive and pink for negative... but what do I know.  Pretty  interesting looking at the septic hedgehog organs - the heart I thought was especially cool, though the others were also interesting.

Then it was game time, had to give my presentation.  It did not go as smoothly as when I'd practiced, I got a bit flustered and mixed up and I'm pretty sure I just confused most of the people (and the people who actually knew what I was supposed to be talking about had to correct me on some stuff).  But hey, it's done, and that's what happens when you have a very limited time to try to learn a whole new topic.

Ava and I then went to grab some food, well coffee for her and Chipotle for me.  Delicious. 

Spent some time going over emails and then had my final meeting with Craig.  Kind of sad, but good to recap the program and go through pros and cons.  Then I went around and found people to say goodbye to (Sarah Hansen and Nick, Ava, Marcia, couldn't find Liz). 

Then back here at Megan's, packing up and wondering how 4 weeks went by so quickly - I'm not ready to go back to the cold of Minnesota!