Surgery Rotation- November 2007

Picture: My first spay!
I just finished my 2 week long Shelter Medicine and Surgery Rotation. This rotation was by far the hardest rotation that I will have this year. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays begin at 8am when all of the shelter animals get checked into the hospital. I pick an animal, do a complete physical exam and run bloodwork and any other tests that need to be done. I then analyze the clinical pathology of the bloodwork results and decide if that animal is healthy enough to spay/neuter or if it's not I develop a plan to diagnose and treat the patient. I then either go into surgery or pick another patient and start all over again. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I work on cadavers performing more difficult surgeries such as a cranial cruciate ligament surgery, total ear canal ablation surgery, transpalpebral eneucleation etc.I spent my birthday practicing orthopedic surgery (repairing a cranial cruciate ligament, patella luxation, and using a normograde technique to place an intramedullary pin in a tibia).
Most of my patients were too sick to spay/neuter. However, I did get to spay one cat and neuter two kittens. I learned more about internal medicine these past two weeks then I have in the past two years combined.

Dairy Rotation- October 1, 2007

Picture: Sunrise at the Dairy.
I have been on my large animal dairy rotation in Los Banos California for over a week now. I have been waking up at 3am and been getting to the veterinary clinic around 4am every day. I spend most of the morning palpating cows for pregnancy. I spend the early afternoon doing miscellaneous stuff like vaccinating and removing supernumerary teats off of calves. I have been sharing/living in a hotel room with Dainna. Even though the hotel is nice, I have only been able to use the hot tub and gym once because I am so busy with work.
Today I humanely euthanized my first two animals ever. Both were down cows. The first one was in lateral recumbancy and was on its death bed. The second one was really sick but was still sternal and was staring at me as I injected the sodium pentabarbital into its jugular vein. I have restrained countless animals for the veterinarian to humanely euthanize as a veterinary technician, but nothing can really prepare you for the first time that you inject and kill the animal yourself. Both of the cows needed to die, and they passed on in a very calm and humane way. I don't regret euthanizing them but I still can't shake the feeling that I actually killed an animal. I can't imagine how difficult it is going to be when I have to euthanize my first companion animal.

Third Year Presentation- September 19, 2007

This morning I presented my Third Year Seminar. Each third year veterinary student is assigned a day to give a 15 minute oral presentation to the faculty and first and second year students on a topic in veterinary medicine that they thoroughly researched in primary literature. The topic of my presentation was, "The Potential Use of Adipose Derived Stem Cells for the Treatment of Canine Osteoarthritis." I was so nervous for the presentation but as soon as I got on stage I felt confident and I think that the presentation went great! I am so relieved that it's over.

Nebraska Day ???

It feels like I have been here forever! I am sooo looking forward to going home in less then 48 hours! This week we got to work with sheep, I got to bleed them, tip them and do physical exams on them. I also got to necropsy a pig that died from torsion of the root of the mesentary. I can't explain how exhausted I am! We have lecture and labs from 8am-5ish and then we have so much homework and assignments that we have to do at night. Tonight I am working on my Epididymitis power point that I have to present tomorrow.
Last night our professors took us out for pizza in Fairfield. It felt so good to get out of the doorms. Tonight we are on Tornado Watch.

Nebraska Day 8- September 3, 2007

Picture 1: Downtown Oak
Picture 2: Trimming hooves

Today was pretty good despite having to work on Labor Day. We had a lecture this morning and then headed 40 miles to the Oregon Trail in Oak Nebraska (population 60, yup 60 not 600 or 6000). We spent the entire morning weaning and vaccinating angus calves on a farm there. Afterwards we went to "downtown Oak" which consisted of 1 block with a Saloon and Country Store and a tiny park where we ate lunch. Afterwards we toured the Oregon Trail Museum. After the museum we were taken to "The Narrows" which is a really cool spot on the Oregon trail where a bunch of pioneers were killed by Indians. At this spot their is this huge old famous tree- it's apparantly over 125 years old.

Nebraska Day 2- August 28, 2007

Today was a lot of fun! This morning we practiced our cow handling clinical skills by running a bunch of Freemartins (sterile cows) through a shoot. I was able to perform my first rectal palpation on a cow. I got to feel a bunch of organs such as the bladder and the rumen. I also took blood from the tail vein, passed a stomach tube, put on a halter and learned a bunch of knots. This afternoon we had a lecture and then had study time. A big thunderstorm rolled in during the late afternoon, it was so beautiful with all the lightening over the cornfields. During one of the breaks in the storm a bunch of us went outside and played some wall ball.

Nebraska Day 1- August 27, 2007

Last night 20 third year veterinary students arrived at the Meat Animal Research Center in Clay Center Nebraska to start our Meat Animal Rotation. Despite being surrounded by nothing but cornfields Nebraska isn't that bad. Today started out with an orientation session followed by a tour of the facilities. My group (Me, Vanessa, Vivian, and Gael) were the first group to be "on call." Right after we got back from the tour we got a call and so headed out to the barns. We examined and took samples from a two and a half year old cow that had calved a few days ago and presented with a pitting edema on her caudal abdomen that has grown larger then what it was yesterday. We ran a urinalysis and a California Mastitis Test which confirmed what we already suspected......mastitis. Afterwards we went to necropsy rounds. I think that I learned more about pathophysiology in the 45 minutes of rounds then I have in the past 2 years of veterinary school. After rounds we made the 20 mile drive to Walmart to pick up food for the next 2 weeks.
The picture is of Me, Vanessa, Gael, and Vivian with our samples that we collected from our patient.

Update

Sorry that I have not updated the website in so long. Third year is a lot more time consuming then the first two years of school. I have been jotting down some notes from each rotation that I was on but never had the opportunity to post them, so I am going to upload them all right now.