Author: madisons744

Today we started with a few patients. Not a lot of exciting stuff happened today. It was a pretty slow day. There were a few oncology patients who arrived. The surgery rechecks went well. The patient whose leg was amputated yesterday was doing well. Though they were struggling to learn how to walk with three legs. I learned that raisins are poisonous to dogs. This is because they do something to the liver. Dogs can also not have grapes or any grape products. This damages their liver. The reason I learned this was because their were three dogs who came in yesterday suspected of eating raisins. The patient who suffered from pneumonia had been moved to the ICU and was released today. When owners sometimes say there dog is a picky eater you have to ask them what they have fed the dogs since getting them. If they respond that they feed them only human food. To animals, human food is like an amazing cake to them. If you only feed them that then they will have no desire to eat any dog food which is designed for them to eat. This morning I got to help hold a dog down to help take its vitals. I had to hold down its legs. In the afternoon we met with to surgery rechecks. One looks like it will be amputated. The other just needs to put weight on the foot.

In the morning we meet with patients. The first patient had cancer that had spread from the mammary glands to cut off the patients ability to excruciate waste. Because the cancer was so far along in its course the owners decided the best thing to do was to put the animal to sleep. The process for Euthanasia usually involves a sedative first and then actually Euthanizing the animal. Being sedated allows for a peaceful and painless process. You can also either have your pet cremated or taken home for burial. The next patient was a young puppy. It was very energetic. It was saying hello and trying to lick everyone. We learned that a green line fracture is where fracture occurs in the bone, but does not go all the way through the bone. It was suspected, and in puppies, the way to remedy this because they grow so fast is to let it heal naturally. You have to keep them on pretty much bedrest for a few weeks which can be very hard. The biggest thing with this type of fracture is to not let the patient jump on anything. That can make the fracture worse, and create other fractures in the bone. A bit later in the morning we got to go in on a leg amputation. I could not get the smell of burning flesh out of my nose. They had to find the Renal Artery and Vein in the leg. They managed to find the artery but no the vein. Their was a lot of muscle and tissue that had to cut through. They sawed through the bone. Whenever they encountered a nerve and cut it the leg would twitch. They had to cauterize smaller arteries and veins as they went to make sure their was no internal bleeding in the dog. It was a short surgery. We also saw the dog that had to get bandaged up. We had seen him on the 4th, 1st, and the 30th. He had his legs bandaged again. He was very sweet the entire time. He is healing nicely. I helped give oxygen to the dog with pneumonia. She is doing better. Before I left they had moved her into the ICU and out of the Oxygen Tank. To give a alert dog oxygen from a tube you have to hold the tube beside their nose, not infant of it. It was slightly tricky with this dog because she kept looking around. Their was another surgery on a cat. It was the removal of a spleen. If you read the first post you would know that after the spleen that holds the original mass is removed, the cat usually gets better and cancer disappears from its body. That is the surgery they performed today. Both surgery patients will spend the night to make sure they are stable, and will probably go home sometime tomorrow. It was a fun day. Their were no wild animals brought in today.

Today I arrived early and meet up with Katrine. We walked inside to the hospital. When we got into the back we were treated by a lot of patients. Some had appointments in the morning, others had come in over night or had stayed the night. There were two animals in the ICU, both in oxygen therapy boxes. One patient had suffered form an attack. The most common form though that these oxygen therapy containers see is pneumonia. Oxygen therapy is where a higher concentration of oxygen is pumped into the unit and is infused into the air. This makes it so when the patient breaths in a higher concentration of oxygen is absorbed. This helps patients that have trouble breathing by allowing then to draw in greater amounts of oxygen. This can help stabilize a patient in critical condition and in need of oxygen. It can also keep a patient out of critical condition. We saw several surgery checkups today. They all seemed to be doing better than they had been before the surgery. When certain cancers form in the legs of large dogs you amputate the leg. However, sometimes you are unable to amputate the leg if the dogs other legs would be unable to support the dog without a fourth leg. Another thing we learned today was that any age dog that has a heart condition can have heart failure. Usually dogs with heart failure are put down. The decision is made by the owner though. Any decision on testing, besides vitals, are made by the owner on a doctors recommendation. We got another goose in today. This time though it was a little gosling. It was absolutely adorable. Yesterday I had met the partners of the hospital that took on the wildlife brought in. They were very nice. I got to help hold this gosling. It did not like being in the cage. We ended up putting it in a cat carrier because it kept trying to escape. It would stick its head and a wing out of the bars of the cage. When we held it it seemed to calm down. We knew it was a young goose because all ducks in this area have orange bills, even at a young age. It could have been a Swan, but it looked exactly like a Canadian Goose Gosling. The day was quite exciting and full of interesting things. The surgeons where decorating the conference room for the baby shower they were having later.

Today was a somewhat slow day at the hospital.We got a few ER patients in the morning, but not many over all. Most exciting stuff happened early in the morning or in the afternoon. In the morning we watched how you remove staples. We also welcomed a few cardiology patients. To take an ultrasound of the heart you have to place the animal on a special board and two people usually hold it in place. You then attach monitors to three of the feet. Sometimes you have to shave the area thats going to be viewed. The Doctor then puts there hand as well as the ultrasound equipment through the hole in the board against the patients chest. This allows them to see the heart and any problems that are in their. Any animal can have heart problems, but some breeds can be more susceptible. In the afternoon both a Pigeon and a Fox were brought in. The fox was injured and was the most interesting ER patient today. Apparently foxes have very thin skin, so it can be hard to shave them. Their fur is also very soft. Fur factories breed foxes for there pelts. If the fox doesn’t have the correct color, they throw it out. If a big gets stuck in the pigeon goop that people set out to stop pigeons from landing their it can become quite bad. When the goop dries it is impossible to get off of a bird. I also meet the people who took the goose last week. They stated that the goose was doing well. All of the patients I saw today ended up heading home either before or after I left. There were no surgeries today, but a lot of check ups on surgeries. I also learned about lepto today. Lepto is a bacterial disease that is passed through the excretion of waste. It can be very deadly causing kidney failure and eventual death if not treated. No dogs so far that we’ve seen have had it, but there are possible cases. Over all the day went by slightly slow, but we were able to help out with a lot of the patients. Many of them were very friendly and just wanted some attention.

I got to the hospital this morning around 8:00. This morning we had an influx of patients into the ER. The first patient that arrived had already passed away by the time it got their. The medics tried to revive him, but it was to no avail. He had seemed to have already bleed out. Our next visitor was neither canine nor feline. A injured gosling had been found and brought in. It was not very happy about the circumstances. I learned where and what a birds ears look like. I learned that most water fowl have a special gland on their back that secretes the water proof oil. They use their beak to gather this oil and spread it over their feathers. Another thing I learned about birds, more specifically certain geese, is you usually cannot tell the difference between male and female. The only certain way you can tell is through a DNA test. Later after many patients had arrived I was able to help more. I helped with the goose, a few dogs, and watched the surgeries take place. One surgery was to both fix a knee as well as remove the dewclaws on a dog. A different surgery was to remove kidney stones from a cat. In the afternoon we had another ER patient who had also been attacked. This one had come in alive, but needed to be stabilized. After getting her stabile they were able to diagnose what was wrong and what she needed done. A cool surgery that was a cross over from Oncology today was the removal of a mass on the back of a dogs tongue. If a mass gets to large then the outer layers can loss circulation, die, and start to rot. This is what happened in that particular case. The mass was cut off of the tongue and the tongue then sutured together. Their where a few dogs with other problems. One dog was brought into the ER because he was thought to maybe have kidney failure. One dog who had an appointment was brought in. He no longer has to wear splints on his hind legs. He was sedated. Their are many different kinds of sedation. You can have one that takes a very long time to wear of, but has a reverse sedative to wake the animal up. Their is another type that allows for sedation, but must always be in steady supply to the blood stream. I also watched the mixing of the drugs used in chemotherapy. I did not witness the actually chemotherapy today though. Overall it was a very exciting day. Their was a lot of interesting things going on and a lot of patients to take care of.

Both me and Katrine arrived early today. Their was a ER patient who had been hit by a car. He was quite friendly though and was not seriously hurt thankfully. He was quite the curios dog. There was a steady flow of patients in the morning that seemed around lunchtime, and increased again around 2:00 in the afternoon. In the morning, around 10:50, we went in to observe a surgery. It was a knee surgery on one of the hind legs. Of the two treatments i described yesterday this one is more commonly used on larger dogs. We had to use this on the little dog though because of the angle of her knee joint. The technique rotates part of the tibia back into the proper angle while securing it their with a metal brace screwed into the bone. This allows for the ball and socket joint to work properly. I learned how getting prepared for surgery can be up to a five person job. First you have to sterilize the part of the patient you are operating on, next the surgeon, or surgeons, must scrub down. Than they must put on the overcoat for the surgery as well as the gloves. They may also to touch anything with their bare hands during this process. Everyone in the room has to wear a hair net and face mask. Depending on the surgery you may require more protective wear. Another thing I learned is that you never lean over the patient’s open wound because skin cells, and other particles on your skin are prone to fall off and my fall into the incision. In the afternoon I watched as they prepped another dog for surgery. This time it was for the gastro-intestinile track. Dogs can show up in the ER for anything from as small as a broken snout, to needing to be kept alive and stabilizing them. We saw both of those kinds of patients today. We also saw a puppy who had gotten into something the night before and had to come to the ER. There were also dogs for checkups there. We watched vets wrap both a medium sized dog’s leg in a cast as well as a tiny dog’s leg in a cast. We met a dog who was very friendly. His problem was he had to few platelets in his blood. Platelets help stop bleeding, and so if you have to few of them you can have some very serious internal bleeding. Over all it was a interesting day. Most of it was taken up by surgery. But we got to see a lot of interesting and varied cases.

Today me and Katrine visited the Triangle Veterinary Referral Hospital in Durham. When I got there Katrine was watching the amputation of a Cat’s hind leg. Many animals who get cancer in a leg get their legs amputated because that can be easier than treating the Cancer with chemotherapy or other methods. We then shadowed one of the head surgeons as he talked to at least two different patients. We learned that the diet and exercise play a big role in the health of a pet. We also learned how because of some dogs pushed in face they have trouble breathing because of a two large soft palette blocking there airway. Another thing we learned was about animal knees. Because animals are on all fours, if they tear an tendon that is holding the knee in place, it can displace the entire knee. There are three types of surgeries to correct this in dogs. First if the angle of the Tibia is slanted to far and not flat, then the surgeon will take a slice out of the top of the fiber and move that into a flat table like position. Then they insert a metal brace to keep that bone in place. This surgery is more commonly used in larger dogs. The other one is where a hole is drilled in the Tibia, and a suture is stretched to the front of the Femur to hold it in place. This allows for the build up of scar tissue to keep the Femur and Tibia aligned. This surgery is more commonly used in smaller dogs. We also learned how to tell differences on an ultrasound. We sam it done on both dogs and cats. On an ultrasound the bladder usually shows up as a giant black splotch. This is because liquid shows up as black on the ultrasound. I was also able to spot a cats kidney on the ultrasound. We also helped muzzle a grumpy ER patient, and help another one be led out to their family. We learned how to tell if a dog is lame, and which paw it is lame in. The back is usually pretty easy to tell if they are lame on a leg. The way you tell if they are lame on a front leg is when you walk them, as they step onto the lame leg their head bobs up, and then when they step onto the other leg their head bobs down. We also saw a lot of problems with overweight or just older animals. It was a fun day. One of the Veterinarian Technicians had her birthday today so we celebrated some during lunch. The room that seemed to get the most patients was the ultrasound room. It was used by both the cardiovascular and oncology departments. The day was very busy in the morning and slowed down in the afternoon. The afternoon is about the time when the influx of patients slow down and everyone starts to fill out paperwork on patients. It was over all a fun day at the Hospital.

Today me and Katrine visited the Oncology Department at NC State University’s Veterinary School. Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. We arrived at 7:50 in the morning and were escorted into the back area of the department. We were shown to the conference room for the Oncology Department where we met the Veterinary Doctors and the Student who work there. We shadowed the only Veterinary Student in the department today. There were two incoming patients today. We greeted them both.  The patients we worked with today were both very friendly. We watched as the Veterinary Student did the primary assessment of the patients when they were brought from the lobby into the first set of rooms. Then we followed the dogs into the back with the Veterinarian and the Student to watch them take the dogs temperature and a blood test. On one of the patients we got to look at the sample taken from the problem area while the Veterinarian described what we were looking at. We learned that most of the time spent working as a veterinarian will be spent talking of possible tests and the pros and cons of that test for the patient with the patients owner. We also saw how Veterinarians also suggest certain tests to look for specific problems, or to make sure there is no problem in a given area. We then talked to one of the head Veterinarians in the department about the different types of cancer, and which affect cats or dogs more. A fun fact we learned that cats with MTC or Mass Tissue Cells (A Tumor) in the spleen is that even if that tumor has released cancerous cells into the blood stream, when the spleen is removed those levels drop. Another thing we discussed with him was how to help find treatments for certain human cancers researchers would look into a similar type of cancer in dogs. This is because dogs have a shorter lifespan and so the process of cancer is shorter in them as well. This can allow for new treatments in both animals and humans to be created at a quicker rate. The problem with these studies is that while there may be hundreds of human samples, there may only be a few canine samples in a study. Another problem in these animal case studies is euthanasia. To end their pets suffering an owner may decide to have a patient put down so that they don’t have to suffer any longer. Usually though this patient is then removed from the case study. We discussed the most common forms of cancer found in dogs, one being Lymphoma which is also a common childhood cancer. In the afternoon the Head Veterinarian we had been talking to earlier showed us around the Veterinary Campus as well as the Hospital. We saw the Surgical, Radiology, ER, Pharmaceutical, and many other departments. There were many patients there today. After that we went into Rounds which is where each person who has a case or cases reports on the diagnosis and treatments of patients. It was quite interesting. While we had only worked with two patients, we got to here about how other patients were doing and what the recommended treatment of that patient was. At the end of the day we helped bring out our patients back to their owners while the Veterinarian explained the diagnosis, what treatment they would probably need, and if they needed more testing done. Overall it was both a fun and interesting day.