Dental Extractions!

So today was my third day of placement at Greenbank Animal Hospital and it was a great day. It was much busier than the first two days and I was able to do a lot more. There was a cat in for dental extractions. The doctor and technicians weren't all that familiar with taking dental radiographs so I tried to impart some of the knowledge and experience that I gained at AHS, especially from Dr. Ashmore. I helped one of the doctors understand the shadow effect of dental radiographs. I was told in my dental lectures back in Edinburgh that a tooth is like a single tree in a field during the day when the sun is up. The higher the sun is, the shorter the shadow of the tree and the lower the sun is, the more elongated the shadow of the tree will be. The sun being the x-ray beam. I think it is a great analogy and helps to understand how to take dental radiographs.

After the radiographs were taken, we moved the cat to the dental table. After reviewing the radiographs, it was determined that most of the teeth would be extracted. After the first extraction, Dr. Oliver handed me the equipment and allowed me to extract 6 of the teeth. One of the premolars that I extracted was quite difficult to get out. I used the drill on two of the teeth to split the two roots at the bifurcation, which made extracting the individual roots MUCH easier. I also found that cutting the gingiva and making a flap made visualizing the roots much easier. I did manage to break one of the roots and I just used a round-tipped bur and drilled out the remaining root fragment. To end the day, I helped with an appointment with two chinchillas. I was extremely happy that I was able to do so much hands-on work today and that they allowed me to extract teeth. Maybe they will let me perform a cruciate ligament repair??? Maybe when I come back to AZ Dr. Prevatt will let me do a TTA all on my own? Hope everyone is having a great week so far! Talk to you all soon!

First Day of Placement

So today was my first official day working at Greenbank Animal Hospital. I wasn't too busy today, there was a spay, neuter and a low dose dex dog that was scheduled. I went in to two vaccination appointments with Dr. Oliver and I thought that it was so strange that there were no room technicians. The doctors did everything, there was no tech to check in the appointment. The appointment went by much faster too and there were no problems with appointments running over their scheduled time. I assisted with the cat neuter, which took all of 10 minutes to do. For cat neuters, they do something completely different than what I'm used to seeing. They inject the testicles with local anesthetic and find that it helps quite a bit with pain management. So I was given the local block and was given the job of injecting the testicles. I can tell you that that's the first time I've done that! They also inject subcutaneous local anesthetic on the lateral sides of the linea alba and also bathe the broad ligaments of the uterus in local anesthetic and find that they can maintain the patient on a very low anesthetic plane without having to increase the anesthetic percentage. The spay was done in about 15 min and that was the end of the surgeries that were scheduled.

Towards the end of my shift, this barn cat came in with a prolapsed testicle and he had an emergency neuter. Then, my fantazing girlfriend picked me up and then we went to Tim Hortons to play rrroll up the rim to win. I lost. Kristen won a coffee. She is awesome! Then we went home and had a gigantic salmon dinner. Now we are going to watch a movie.

I'm Baaaaaacccckkkkk!

First part of the exam is over! It was only a 30 question MCQ though, so it was only an hour long. Today I travelled to Lindisfarne, you can check it out here (http://www.lindisfarne.org.uk/). I walked just about 10 miles today to get there and back. I found out when I got to Berwick Upon Tweed that the bus that runs to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne operates only on the weekend. So I had to take a bus to Beal, which was the closest town to Lindisfarne. After a very long walk, I finally reached the main stretch of the Lindisfarne Causeway. It was amazing! The main road went right through where the water is and the tide comes in so much that it covers the entire road by 4pm with about 3-4 feet of water! Crazy! There are even refuge towers in case you get stranded on the road after 4pm. There were two ways to go between Lindisfarne and the mainland. On the way to Lindisfarne, I walked the road, which apparently adds about 45 min onto the travel time when you are walking. On the way back, I took the "Pilgrims Way" that takes you through the sand with a long stretch of very tall posts that mark the old route used by the pilgrims back in the day. I came across some spots that were like quick sand almost! My foot sank deep into the sand/mud and I was not impressed...

I finally made it back to the mainland before the tide came in and managed to catch the 4.30pm bus back to Berwick Upon Tweed and got the 5.26pm train back to Edinburgh. So, I don't know what you all did today but I managed to go to Scotland AND England, got to walk down an old ancient path across the sand, saw a castle that was like something out of a fantasy book and it was sunny with no clouds. However, my legs are now like jelly and my bones are asking why I decided to make them walk almost 10 miles today! I leave for Canada tomorrow afternoon and am VERY excited to see Kristen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then I get to come home in a few weeks and see you all! What a great Spring break! Well, I better get some sleep here so I can wake up with plenty of sleep before I start my day of travel. Talk to you all soon!

No posts for two weeks

So, exams are coming up and I am getting stressed with so much to go over in 2 weeks. I have been studying nonstop and will continue to do so until exams are over in a couple of weeks. To keep things simple for these next couple of weeks, I have decided to not post any new topics until exams are over. I will not be logging on to my blog, posting pictures or posting new topics in these coming two weeks (UNLESS something amazing happens). I'm sure you would find it rather boring if I continued to post topics about how studying is going, because that is pretty much all I will be doing. I will post something after the exam is over. I leave for Canada on the 25th (yipppeeeeee!!!) and am there for 2 weeks with my amazing girlfriend and her parents! Then I am flying to AZ for two weeks to enjoy some well deserved relaxation and nice weather! I hope you all have a great next two weeks and don't work too hard! See you all very soon!

13 days remain until the next exam!

Yikes! So this is an eye-opener! I have an exam in 13 days and I still have so much to go over from all of these last lectures. I'm definitely not looking forward to this exam but I am, however, looking forward to going to Canada to see Kristen and AZ to see everyone else! It will be nice to have one part of the exam over with. We are only being given the multiple choice exam and the written portion is in May. I am really looking forward to the summer break as I will have almost 4 months off! I will finally get to enjoy some NICE weather for a change!

Speaking of weather, when I woke up this morning, there was snow all over! It has melted since this morning, but there was quite a bit. The rain melted the snow in a matter of an hour once it started though. It snowed out at the campus yesterday as well. Yesterday was a long day. We had two lectures, a differential diagnosis practical and then we had a mock history taking with an acting client. We were basically given a scenario and we then had to go up to the client as if he/she were a real client and obtain a history for the doctor that was "in an emergency". It was 3 hours long and I was so tired by the end of the practical. It was interesting though. I've taken history hundreds of times from clients at the clinic and I felt that it was very good practice for others who haven't had much experience in history taking.

I am currently working on Ophthalmology and trying to finish all of the lectures so that I can move on to Dermatology, which is another long section. Once I get through Derm, all of the other sections are relatively short, so I should be able to finish in time so that I have a week of straight review. I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and I look forward to seeing you all VERY soon!

A thought on pet adoptions...

So I was reading the news this morning and came across an article on something that I had read the other day. The first article I read was about this puppy that was euthanized in Oklahoma along with his litter mates. However, one of the men that work at the facility looked in the box after the puppies had been euthanized and found that one was very much alive and well. The weird thing was that the animal shelter euthanized the puppies, put them in a box and threw them out into the dumpster. Are there not laws regulating the disposal of animal remains? Maybe Oklahoma is different from everyone else... The shelter has aptly named the puppy "Wall-E" and apparently the story that the news has generated has caused hundreds of people from Canada and the US to call the shelter and ask if they could adopt him. So I don't think Wall-E is going to have a difficult time finding a new home!

So why is it that so many people are willing to adopt Wall-E? Well, for one, he has a pretty unique story of coming back from the dead (or the veterinarian accidentally used saline instead of euthasol)! There are so many animals out there that need homes and so many of them get euthanized if they are not adopted within a certain amount of time. How about if news channels and papers make up an amazing story for each and every homeless animal? I'm sure they would get more calls then! I just think that it is so crazy how if a news channel were to show that same puppy without the story of the miraculous recovery it had, you wouldn't see nearly as many adoption calls. It is so amazing how a simple story of survival can prompt hundreds of people to call for an adoption request. Too bad all homeless animals don't have an amazing survival story. If I recall correctly, I think this happened during Katrina and another dog was looking for a new home (although, it may have been a stranded dog that had a previous home as I can't remember for sure).

Oh, and to answer your question Lisa, I am not near the site where Battle of Culloden took place, but it's not that far and I can easily reach it by train.

The Weekend is Finally Here!

After a busy week of lectures and studying, I'm ready for the weekend already! Strange though, because it seems like the week has flown by! Maybe I should take another trip somewhere? I probably shouldn't and study instead, you know, since my exam is in less than three weeks... I'm looking forward to that! I got to ultrasound the abdomen of a cow yesterday, which was fun. The liver had multiple circular abscesses so it was easy to see. Actually, ultrasounding a cows abdomen is quite easy. Everything is BIG! We then had clinical cases out in the equine hospital where each group was given a hospitalized horse to work with. After 10 minutes, the professor came around and asked us some questions. It was basically to get us more used to examining the horse and being confident in our physical examination. After 2 hours of that, we finally finished and I went home.

Yesterday, I went out to go see the movie "Unknown" with Liam Neeson with a few others from the course. Afterwards, we headed to a pub for a drink and called it a night. I've got a lot of studying to do this weekend and exams are in less than three weeks! Yikes! Hope everyone is doing well and I am looking forward to seeing you all over Easter break!