random thoughts

I think we all know that Kyle and Doug had an AWESOME time in Hannover. Having said that, I was amazed at how little trouble I had staying awake all day Wednesday, which was primarily possible because I found the excursions to be quite interesting. Seeing the cows being worked on was fascinating to see, once I was able to look at the cows hide without imagining a nice comfy leather couch. It emphasized the differences between surgery on animals and humans, and showed the difficulties that arise from the inability to simply tell a patient what you need them to do or have them lay a certain way as well as the care that vets must take in preventing infections as they are not performing in a sterile environment.
I feel like this study abroad has helped me realize that I am much more interested in veterinary medicine than in human medicine, not that I will necessarily be going to either vet or med school. As for now I think I am just going to graduate next summer and try to figure out what exactly interests me as I work for a few years. Right now I am interested in finding a job that deals with manipulating and/or redesigning implantable devices for humans so that they can be applied to aminals. However, I highly doubt there is a large market for such devices because they are so expensive and generally hard to justify in animals. So basically I have no idea what I am going to do when I get out of school.

Now, to go back to something I wrote about before, why have governments not made it manditory, or at least beneficial to the farmers, for cattle to have electronic chips that can be used to help verify the safety of the meat and milk. The paper passport system that has been described to me seems too easy to work around and be left with holes. Yes, the electronic system would have a greater cost, especially initially, but it would be very interesting to see a comparison of projected costs for such a program with the economic losses suffered due to the occassional outbreak of things like hoof and mouth disease and the resulting panic which drastically reduces the ability to export cattle products.