My career

Veterinary Medicine is a very old career and has been evolving along with the way people thinks about animals and the new technologies in treatments and diagnosis, but from my perspective is the most difficult health career to practice, because of many factors.

One of them is the way people see animals, they think of them as mere objects and mostly their reason to live is to amuse its owners, so a person would not accept an animal which causes him a considerable outcome of money, even if that decides the life of it. I realize this thought is decreasing as years pass, but still most of the people does conceive animals as I wrote before, and until we don’t change that, we will always be limited in what we can do for these creatures. In my opinion animal are better than men, they show you extreme loyalty, never act with bad intentions and always appreciate if you do something for them…well, that’s why I chose this medicine.

In addition, I think our career is not very respected, people see us as animal trainers or something, but anything like a real doctor, so they doubt about our skills, knowledge, etc. But you know what, at some point they are right, because we don’t get the education and practice we need, I’ve learned that in five years it is impossible for anyone to be prepared to treat, operate and deal with the challenges that a doctor must face. However, increasing the length of this career would be an error if you think how bad we get paid and haw low is the respect, that way people would decide not to study a career which would take as many years as human medicine and that gives you so little opportunities. Those adjustments should be done only when Chile starts to think as a first world country, otherwise it would not be worthy.

This is a tough profession and one of the most beautiful one, only the courage and really talented people can take all this and succeed after all, I only hope I turn out to become one of those people.

iPads for animals?

When Steve jobs launched the iPad, the new incredible and innovating Apple’s release he might not have been thinking about the dolphin market. Even though the iPad was made for human, the people from the Dolphin Discovey sweim facility in Aventuras, Mexico, think it can be used for interspecies research.

The scientits use waterprofeed ipad to help them comunicate with Merlin, a bottlenose dolphin, to improve the way dolphins express themselves to humans. Merlin is quite curious, like every other dolphin.

Jack Kassewitz, a scientist says he’s been able to communicate with Merlin with the ipad. He thinks that when the dolphins get the hang of the touchscreen they would be able to choose from assortment of symbols to reprsent objetc, actions and emotion.

This discovery is one of many others, like communication using touch and body postur.

Finally, Kassewitz has some suggestions for the people in charge of the iPad production: “Waterproofing, processor speed, touch-sensitivity, anti-glare screens and dolphin-friendly programs are essential... we need fast technology to help us working with the dolphins”.

This kind of research is performed to undercover how these peculiar animals communicate to each other, a process that has remained as a true mystery for humans.

Original article:

iPads for animals? It's not as far fetched as you think…

by Alok Jha

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jun/13/ipad-dolphins-language

My faculty

“Universidad de Chile” is probably the best Chilean University, but it has always been known for being very messy, and the Veterinary faculty is not the exception. I think we have a great faculty if we realize the way we are taught, but this doesn’t correlate with other aspects like infrastructure, implements, academic load, and academic organization.

It is unconceivable feeling lonely when you have problems with schedule or doctor’s excuse, the authorities just give you more stuff to worry about (this sort of strict model is awful).

Another fissure in this faculty is the load, we have 7 subjects per term, and that equals to the subjects in one year in other countries like Argentina. It is like you have to live for this career, which is not healthy at any point.

The authorities need to see that there is no intention from us to cheat them or something, we only want their help. If they change their mind our lives will be much easier, that is the first step. Then we have the load issue... I'm not asking to study more years but perhaps a specialization model should be established. I know everyone loves this big field of opportunities we have, and I get the feeling that doing this, veterinarians as individuals will lose job opportunities. However it is the better way to solve it.

In my opinion those broken pieces are the priority to make more confortable studying there, and after correcting them I would start with investing money. I can tell how difficult is for an state University to get more money, especially in such as expensive area, but we need to have better supplies, because other Universities are much more advanced in that topic, so implements and the number of chances we get to use them will be the key to stay at the top.

After analyzing our situation we need to realize that even when “Universidad de Chile” gives the best education, does not mean it is perfect, and there are always things to improve, but the fact to accept it and try to fix things is what makes a great University.