Our Blog

Introducing Tyler Austin VandeVenter

Sun, 8 Mar 2009 19:33:17 -0600

Welcome to the world, Tyler Austin. Born at 5:01 am on March 8, 2009.

7 pounds, 13 ounces and 21 inches long.

It would appear that I am not doomed to a house full of girls after all and we think Jordan will take to having a little brother to boss around just nicely.

He is already trying to left his head up on his own. See more pictures in my mobile me gallery

Halloween 2008

Sat, 1 Nov 2008 15:19:35 -0600

Jordan had a Good Halloween. We went over to Heather’s Neighborhood to show off to Heather and then went Trick or Treating there. She enjoyed it. Almost had “trick or treat” down, but easily said “thank you” at most houses.

She was a Lady bug and her cuteness scored her extra candy at most houses.

We kept a few suckers for her, but most of her haul went into Lynette’s work.

ACVP Exam Results and the future

Mon, 6 Oct 2008 17:21:45 -0600

Well the results are in and I did not successfully complete the ACVP exam.

So I’m back to studying and preparing for next year. Into this, I am also applying for a job with Idexx Laboratories here in Colorado. We’ll see if that will tide me over as I prepare for next year. September 22-24th in Ames Iowa.

One chapter closed, another opened. Take care everyone.

Exam Blog 2008, pt. 3

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:07:42 -0600

Well today is a special day for two reasons. The first being that I have finished my first attempt at the American Board of Veterinary Pathologists Certification exam. It was a long and hard exam, but it’s done. Nothing left to do but patiently wait for the results to come in sometime next week.

The other thing to make today special is that it is our Fourth Anniversary.

After finishing off the clinical pathology section of Vet Path and then the killer 100 question General Path section, I had some lunch and discussion with some other candidates and then jetted down to Des Moines to meet my bride.

We’re spending the night in Des Moines and fly out for New York Friday morning to finish out annual Anniversary celebration. Tonight we celebrated four years with dinner at Ohana Steakhouse. It’s a fun little teppanyaki Japanese grill. Fun, entertaining and excellent food.

So that about wraps up the exam blog. I’m not 100% sure how I feel about it. I’m holding out some shot bits of confidence that I could have passed histo and Gross, but we will see. So off to New York for a deserved vacation and after that, to the Job hunt, finding out how I did on the exam, and making plans for the future. Until then, we’ll return you to your regular internet reading. I’ll post New York stuff if I get a chance.

Exam Blog 2008, pt. 2

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:26:58 -0600

Today was a full exam day. We were first greeted with the gross pathology section. This is a 100 question exam broken into too parts with a short break in-between. Time to answer the questions with each associated image ranged from either 1 minute, 1 minute 30 or 2 minutes depending on the depth of the questions asked. The first one was what we call a “freebie” from a very recognizable lesion, but it was more or less down hill from there.

It was very challenging with quite a bit of Lab/Exotic associated questions. The other great question I found was in the spleen of a cheetah that is a classic lesion, but it was a very challenging exam none the less.

After the exam part we break for lunch. Our 600 dollar fee seems to get us poorly cooked penne pasta, salad, roll and some associated sauce. Well it fills you up if not satisfies.

After lunch we get to sit down for the first bit of multiple choice questions. a total of 150 questions in three “modules” of the Vet Path section. My modules were Dog & Cat, Large Animal (Sheep, Goats, Pigs, Horses and Cows), and Lab Animals (Mice, Rats, Gerbils, Rabbits, Monkeys, and the like). I decided not to replace one of these with the Zoo/Exotic/Wildlife section.

This exam was VERY challenging. I guessed on some, I knew some, and some I could reason out I hope reasonably.

So in general, I felt a lot more confident of things after Histo than I did today, but well that’s life of a ACVP candidate.

Tomorrow is the last module of Vet Path. It’s “Clinical Pathology”. After that there will be a small break and we’ll hit the Grand Daddy test. General Pathology.

Till then