I actually did have a decent camera with me at Western Veterinary Conference this year. But I didn't use it. Vegas is, of course, a spectacle. One expects to see tourists walking blindly through the streets, eyes to the sky at the visual cornucopia of overstimulation, mouths hanging agog in disbelief. When you're strolling through the casino behind two 8 foot Amazonian showgirls in purple feathers and not much else, it's a given people will be whipping out their cameras. Ditto for the ... Read more »
WVC
Near Chef Experience
I know at some point I am going to actually have to write up all the medical stuff I have learned at the conference, but for now I'm just sharing the Vegas Experience with you all. Because seriously, it is an experience the likes of which exists nowhere else on the planet. Everyone should go at least once in their lives, if nothing else at least to people-watch. Because even if you don't gamble (I don't), and don't drink (well, let's say I am not averse to a glass of wine), there is always ... Read more »
Wired
One thing that I've learned over the years, despite all our drooling over newfangled shiny toys and the latest in technology, when it comes down to it the medical professions are fairly resistant to modernization and change. It happens, but very very slowly. Think I'm kidding? How many of your vet clinics are on Facebook? I rest my case. The last conference I went to was BlogPaws, where every lap held a laptop and the speakers looked out onto a sea of head crowns, bent over the keyboard, ... Read more »
Emphasis on the casual
I function under the clear delusion that I might, at events like these conferences, actually run into someone I know. There are about 13,000 people packed like sardines into the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, agreeably migrating from room to room like thirsty, badge-wearing wildebeests looking for the River of Knowledge from which to imbibe. You are an anonymous, faceless member of the herd. Which is why I shouldn't have worried this morning when I cracked open my suitcase, packed under ... Read more »
Old Dogs New Tricks
Like most medical professionals, a veterinarian's education is far from over the moment they graduate. Indeed, it's just beginning. Not only do we need to continue to learn and refine the skills we've already acquired, the continuous and exponential increase in knowledge requires us to practice in a perpetual state of evolution. I graduated from veterinary school in 2002. I still feel like a new grad sometimes, but in the grand scheme of things I might as well be a dinosaur. Some of the ... Read more »
