Try as I might, I just could not come up with a witty title for this post. Check back after winter break...
This past week's rotation was small animal internal medicine.
I'd heard from friends and classmates that internal med was a cool rotation, that you would get to see some neat cases, and learn interesting stuff.
Well, that was and wasn't true.
Here's the basic layout of internal med:
There are 2 "teams," called Med-1 and Med-2. Each team has 1 clinician (usually a faculty member, but in my case a 3rd-year resident) who is in charge. Then each team has 2 other DVMs (usually 1 resident and 1 intern), 4 senior students, and 1 or 2 juniors. The seniors get assigned to either Med-1 or Med-2; we juniors just get to pick on the first morning of our rotation (usually based on seeing the names of the clinicians on the doors of the 2 rounds room, and picking whomever you like better).
Med-1 and Med-2 function basically separately from Monday through Thursday. As internal medicine cases arrive at the hospital or are transferred from other services, they get assigned to either Med-1 or Med-2, and that same team will deal with that case for the remainder of its visit that week.
The general schedule, Monday through Thursday, is as follows: Inpatient rounds from 8:30-9:30 am (which was pushed back a little later on Monday since we started with a brief orientation). From 9:30 to approximately 1 pm, the team sees cases and attends to inpatients. The afternoon (while us poor juniors are in class, of course) is reserved for a few appointments but mostly procedures (like endoscopy or biopsies).
The 2 main ways that Med-1 or Med-2 get cases is by either new patients coming in (usually referrals from an rDVM who has tried to work up a case but the patient needs diagnostics or procedures that are beyond the rDVM's ability or scope of knowledge), or from transfers (a large number of the cases that come in on emergency overnight get transferred to internal med in the morning, and periodically throughout the day the Urgent Care service will transfer some of the more complicated cases to internal med; there is also an occasional transfer from Community Practice, such as a case this week of an apparently healthy dog that had a huge number of abnormalities on routine bloodwork).
On Monday and Wednesday, Med-1 gets all of the transfers and Med-2 takes the new cases arriving at the VTH. On Tuesday and Thursday, it's switched. On Friday, everybody teams up and sees things together. Also on Friday, we start with Grand Rounds from 8:30-9:30 and then inpatient rounds from 9:30 till 10:30 or 11.
Overall the thing that surprised me most about my internal med rotation was the amount of time we spent sitting around and discussing cases. On an average morning this week, there would be perhaps 1 or 2 inpatients, and 2 or 3 new cases: for a team of 8 people to work up. So perhaps 80% of the time, we weren't actually doing anything with the animals: we were sitting around the table talking about histories, physical exams, problem lists, differential diagnoses, and potential treatment plans.
That being said, I did get to do basically one cool thing each day of the week:
Monday: Watched part of an echo on a cat with acromegaly. Aspirated an enlarged superficial cervical lymph node on a sweet dog named Mack suspected of having malignant histiocytosis (yucky cancer). I didn't get a good sample from the LN, but neither did the 2 people who tried after me, so there.
Tuesday: Performed a buccal mucosal bleed time (BMBT) on the dog from Monday who was supposed to be going to surgery to have a lung mass biopsied. Unfortunately, Mack had been having some issues with thrombocytopenia (lack of platelets = badness) for a few weeks, and on CBC on Monday his platelets were only 40,000 (normal is 200-500,000). The BMBT basically tests how well the platelets are working -- you can have a normal number of platelets, but if the platelets don't function correctly, then you still can't clot your blood. The BMBT entailed laying Mack on his side, taping his upper lip to his muzzle so that the underside of the lip was exposed, then making a small cut in the mucous membrane of the lip and waiting to see how long it took to stop bleeding. Normal BMBT is less than 5 minutes; we called it a day (and an abnormal test result) when Mack was still bleeding at 14 minutes. Needless to say, the poor guy did not go to surgery.
Wednesday: Wednesday morning was extra slow case-wise, but I did get to feel a thyroid slip on another service's kitty. A thyroid slip is one way of tentatively diagnosing hyperthyroidism, which is an overactive thyroid gland usually caused by a benign tumor in older cats. The thyroid gland often physically enlarges, which you can sometimes feel on physical exam as a "popping" feeling as you slide your thumb and index finger down either side of the cat's trachea.
Thursday: I got pretty involved with a case on Thursday. The patient was Charlotte, a 3 year old Boston Terrier with a 2 week history of regurgitation, and a chronic history of well-controlled IBD. Charlotte had been worked up at her rDVM with bloodwork, survey radiographs, and a barium study -- all of which were basically normal, and yet Charlotte had been able to hold down almost no food or water in the last 2 weeks, and was losing weight. Charlotte's mom was in nursing school so had been giving Charlotte sq fluids every day, and syringe feeding her, but Charlotte needed some answers soon. We repeated a CBC, chemistry panel, urinalysis, and survey chest and abdominal radiographs, performed an abdominal ultrasound, and did a barium contrast esophagram -- all of which were, again, essentially normal.
Friday: Charlotte came back in on Friday morning for endoscopy of her upper GI tract. I was unfortunately in rounds so didn't get to observe the procedure, but Charlotte's esophagus actually looked normal (we were expecting esophagitis or a mass or stricture or foreign body). Her stomach and duodenum, however, were horribly inflamed -- the resident doing the scoping said that he had never seen such inflamed mucosae. So Charlotte got some biopsies and I'm very interested to see what they show next week.
So that was internal med. I'm sure it will be more interesting as a senior (well, it better be more interesting, because I have it for 4 weeks!) when I can be more involved in the cases and be around in the afternoons to watch the procedures.
Next week: on to Clinical Pathology! A subject that I love on paper (i.e. interpreting lab results), but unfortunately most of our 4 hours a day next week will be spent at microscopes -- which I also don't mind, but tend to get a bad headache after more than an hour or so of looking into the microscope. So Advil, here I come!
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Subject lines
"Bottoms up: Things you can Learn from a Rectal Exam"
It's when I get emails with subject lines like the above that I just have to step back and marvel at the strangeness of my life.
It's when I get emails with subject lines like the above that I just have to step back and marvel at the strangeness of my life.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Distraction wanted (but not needed)
I'm studying dermatology right now.
(Okay, not technically right now, because I need a break before my brain explodes.)
Dermatology is so boring. So, so boring.
And the most annoying part is, most general small animal practitioners will tell you that about 50% of their cases they see on a day-to-day basis are derm cases.
So it's important. And I have to learn it.
But come on. Acute pyotraumatic moist dermatitis, otitis externa, dermatophytosis, glucocorticoid use, and that's not even getting into the entire 50-minute lecture that was devoted 100% to shampoos.
Shampoos!
Gaahhhh.... guess I'd better get back to it, since I still have to get through pemphigus, lupus, and the ever-dreaded shampoo notes tonight...
(Okay, not technically right now, because I need a break before my brain explodes.)
Dermatology is so boring. So, so boring.
And the most annoying part is, most general small animal practitioners will tell you that about 50% of their cases they see on a day-to-day basis are derm cases.
So it's important. And I have to learn it.
But come on. Acute pyotraumatic moist dermatitis, otitis externa, dermatophytosis, glucocorticoid use, and that's not even getting into the entire 50-minute lecture that was devoted 100% to shampoos.
Shampoos!
Gaahhhh.... guess I'd better get back to it, since I still have to get through pemphigus, lupus, and the ever-dreaded shampoo notes tonight...
Consider me fully vaccinated
Hey, between heading up to bed at 8:30 on Friday night and the 10 (yes, count 'em, ten) vaccines I've had in the last 2.5 years, there's not that much difference between me and a baby!
I got a meningitis booster on Friday -- which added to the MMR, tetanus, H1N1, 3 influenza, and 3 rabies vaccines I've had since starting vet school in August 2008.
Some people get all upset about various vaccination guidelines for dogs and cats. The standard used to be, basically, every dog (and every cat that actually went to the vet, which wasn't that many) got all of its vaccines every year. For dogs that would be a distemper-parvo combo, rabies, and maybe something like lepto or bordetella or corona.
Well, nowadays people have done more research and proved that in adult animals, most of those vaccines create solid immunity for at least 3 years -- so current recommendations are generally to vaccinate adult dogs for distemper-parvo every 3 years, and rabies as far apart as legal guidelines will allow (ranges from requiring annual vaccination to every 3 years).
However, even still some pet owners (and some vets) are hugely reluctant to vaccinate their adult animals (or even their puppies and kittens) that much.
To be fair, when selecting a vaccine protocol for an individual animal, you need to take in risk assessment. Maybe that dog that goes to the groomer every month, plays at the dog park every weekend, and hangs out at doggie day care 3 afternoons a week is more at risk for getting contagious diseases like distemper or parvo. Versus "mommy's little lap dog" who is white and fluffy and whose feet never touch the ground, much less actually leave the backyard.
And there are some serious risks to vaccination, don't get me wrong. A prime example would be vaccine-associated fibrosarcoma in cats -- wherein a cat can develop a huge, nasty, aggressive, malignant soft tissue tumor at the site of injection, which has often spread to the body wall by the time the tumor is diagnosed, and then bye bye kitteh.
Now, if you're the owner of the one cat in however many thousand that actually develops FSA after a vaccine, then I don't blame you for being super head-shy about vaccinating other or future animals you have. Or if your pet has anaphylactic reactions to vaccines.
However, for most of those run-of-the-mill cases where people don't have a great reason for not vaccinating (and I've heard some "great" reasons such as "Well, vaccines cause autism in children, so I don't want to hurt Sparky's brain"), I'm all for the vaccines.
And now I can point out my personal experience with getting more vaccines in a 2.5-year timeframe than I would ever intend to give to an adult dog or cat. And look at me, I'm doing fine! (Well, you could argue that point, but please don't.)
Anyhow, I got my meningitis vaccine at a huge vaccine clinic held on my university's campus. There have been 7 cases of meningitis in the county this year, with the most recent case killing an undergrad student who worked evenings and weekends as a receptionist at the VTH. Hence, there was an enormous push by the administration to get as many students vaccinated (or boostered) as possible.
I knew it was going to be a big affair, but I was mildly alarmed when, as I was driving to school on Friday morning, they said on the radio that over 4000 students had pre-registered for the vaccine clinic in the preceding 48 hours. Yikes. And who knows how many people showed up as walk-ins.
So I felt glad I'd planned ahead and brought a book to pass the time until I got my vaccine. After all, even when I'm the only patient in the immunization department at student health, it can sometimes take 10-15 minutes to get a flu shot.
However, I was totally amazed upon arriving at the student rec center about 5 minutes before my 3:10 appointment. There were signs up for blocks around the center, directing foot traffic to the appropriate entrance. Volunteers wearing astonishingly neon yellow vests directed us as we entered the rec center, and herded us into the appropriate lines. I had to wait for about 5 minutes to print out my registration ticket (I didn't have access to a printer when I registered on Wednesday), but after that it was just a short walk down a hallway to a huge gym, which was Vaccine Central.
There were about 10 "screening stations" set up on tables along one wall. As you walked into the gym, you took your registration ticket to whichever screener was open. They asked the requisite questions ("Are you feeling well?" "Have you eaten today?"), then took your ticket and gave you a vaccine form to take to the next station.
Station #2 was the actual vaccinations. There were about 10 groups of tables set up on the other side of the gym. Each group of tables seated 4 nurses, each of whom was administering vaccines, and a fifth person who was helping draw up vaccines and complete paperwork. Yes, that's 40-some nurses doing vaccines at once.
I was pointed almost immediately to an open nurse's station, got stabbed in the arm, and shuffled with the other vaccinated students over to a food-and-water station aimed as prophylaxis to avoid fainting.
It was literally no more than 12 or 13 minutes between the time that I entered the rec center and when I was walking out the door on the other side. I was completely floored by the efficiency and organization of this undertaking, and said so to several of the volunteers -- they must have been having a long day, because they perked up right away and said "Thank you for sharing that! We really appreciate it!"
This wasn't really a vet med story, but in a way it was: with all the bureaucracy, rules, guidelines, and procedures you encounter every day in a great big organization or business (such as a university), it's always refreshing to see that they can sometimes get things right (even if it doesn't really happen in the vet school per se...).
P.S. The vaccinations were FREE! My last vaccine was as a freshman or sophomore undergrad, and it cost $90-something. Heck yes, I'll take a free booster!
I got a meningitis booster on Friday -- which added to the MMR, tetanus, H1N1, 3 influenza, and 3 rabies vaccines I've had since starting vet school in August 2008.
Some people get all upset about various vaccination guidelines for dogs and cats. The standard used to be, basically, every dog (and every cat that actually went to the vet, which wasn't that many) got all of its vaccines every year. For dogs that would be a distemper-parvo combo, rabies, and maybe something like lepto or bordetella or corona.
Well, nowadays people have done more research and proved that in adult animals, most of those vaccines create solid immunity for at least 3 years -- so current recommendations are generally to vaccinate adult dogs for distemper-parvo every 3 years, and rabies as far apart as legal guidelines will allow (ranges from requiring annual vaccination to every 3 years).
However, even still some pet owners (and some vets) are hugely reluctant to vaccinate their adult animals (or even their puppies and kittens) that much.
To be fair, when selecting a vaccine protocol for an individual animal, you need to take in risk assessment. Maybe that dog that goes to the groomer every month, plays at the dog park every weekend, and hangs out at doggie day care 3 afternoons a week is more at risk for getting contagious diseases like distemper or parvo. Versus "mommy's little lap dog" who is white and fluffy and whose feet never touch the ground, much less actually leave the backyard.
And there are some serious risks to vaccination, don't get me wrong. A prime example would be vaccine-associated fibrosarcoma in cats -- wherein a cat can develop a huge, nasty, aggressive, malignant soft tissue tumor at the site of injection, which has often spread to the body wall by the time the tumor is diagnosed, and then bye bye kitteh.
Now, if you're the owner of the one cat in however many thousand that actually develops FSA after a vaccine, then I don't blame you for being super head-shy about vaccinating other or future animals you have. Or if your pet has anaphylactic reactions to vaccines.
However, for most of those run-of-the-mill cases where people don't have a great reason for not vaccinating (and I've heard some "great" reasons such as "Well, vaccines cause autism in children, so I don't want to hurt Sparky's brain"), I'm all for the vaccines.
And now I can point out my personal experience with getting more vaccines in a 2.5-year timeframe than I would ever intend to give to an adult dog or cat. And look at me, I'm doing fine! (Well, you could argue that point, but please don't.)
Anyhow, I got my meningitis vaccine at a huge vaccine clinic held on my university's campus. There have been 7 cases of meningitis in the county this year, with the most recent case killing an undergrad student who worked evenings and weekends as a receptionist at the VTH. Hence, there was an enormous push by the administration to get as many students vaccinated (or boostered) as possible.
I knew it was going to be a big affair, but I was mildly alarmed when, as I was driving to school on Friday morning, they said on the radio that over 4000 students had pre-registered for the vaccine clinic in the preceding 48 hours. Yikes. And who knows how many people showed up as walk-ins.
So I felt glad I'd planned ahead and brought a book to pass the time until I got my vaccine. After all, even when I'm the only patient in the immunization department at student health, it can sometimes take 10-15 minutes to get a flu shot.
However, I was totally amazed upon arriving at the student rec center about 5 minutes before my 3:10 appointment. There were signs up for blocks around the center, directing foot traffic to the appropriate entrance. Volunteers wearing astonishingly neon yellow vests directed us as we entered the rec center, and herded us into the appropriate lines. I had to wait for about 5 minutes to print out my registration ticket (I didn't have access to a printer when I registered on Wednesday), but after that it was just a short walk down a hallway to a huge gym, which was Vaccine Central.
There were about 10 "screening stations" set up on tables along one wall. As you walked into the gym, you took your registration ticket to whichever screener was open. They asked the requisite questions ("Are you feeling well?" "Have you eaten today?"), then took your ticket and gave you a vaccine form to take to the next station.
Station #2 was the actual vaccinations. There were about 10 groups of tables set up on the other side of the gym. Each group of tables seated 4 nurses, each of whom was administering vaccines, and a fifth person who was helping draw up vaccines and complete paperwork. Yes, that's 40-some nurses doing vaccines at once.
I was pointed almost immediately to an open nurse's station, got stabbed in the arm, and shuffled with the other vaccinated students over to a food-and-water station aimed as prophylaxis to avoid fainting.
It was literally no more than 12 or 13 minutes between the time that I entered the rec center and when I was walking out the door on the other side. I was completely floored by the efficiency and organization of this undertaking, and said so to several of the volunteers -- they must have been having a long day, because they perked up right away and said "Thank you for sharing that! We really appreciate it!"
This wasn't really a vet med story, but in a way it was: with all the bureaucracy, rules, guidelines, and procedures you encounter every day in a great big organization or business (such as a university), it's always refreshing to see that they can sometimes get things right (even if it doesn't really happen in the vet school per se...).
P.S. The vaccinations were FREE! My last vaccine was as a freshman or sophomore undergrad, and it cost $90-something. Heck yes, I'll take a free booster!
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
6 lessons learned today
#1: If I never again in my life eviscerate a cadaver dog, I will still have done it one too many times.
#2: As bad as you think the stench can get, just leave the cadavers alone in a cooler for 24 hours then open them back up again. Decomposition is a stunning process.
#3: Double glove. Two layers of latex = half as much unavoidable death smell on your hands for the rest of the day.
#4: Removing the heart, lungs, esophagus, diaphragm, kidneys, liver, spleen, bladder, intestines, stomach, gallbladder, colon, and major blood vessels, fat, mesentery, and other connective tissue from a Rottweiler does not make the remaining cadaver a whole lot lighter.
#5: You can spread apart a dog's ribs an incredible distance before they crack (but they do eventually crack).
#6: I never, EVER plan to do heart surgery on a living animal (or, hopefully, on another dead one).
#2: As bad as you think the stench can get, just leave the cadavers alone in a cooler for 24 hours then open them back up again. Decomposition is a stunning process.
#3: Double glove. Two layers of latex = half as much unavoidable death smell on your hands for the rest of the day.
#4: Removing the heart, lungs, esophagus, diaphragm, kidneys, liver, spleen, bladder, intestines, stomach, gallbladder, colon, and major blood vessels, fat, mesentery, and other connective tissue from a Rottweiler does not make the remaining cadaver a whole lot lighter.
#5: You can spread apart a dog's ribs an incredible distance before they crack (but they do eventually crack).
#6: I never, EVER plan to do heart surgery on a living animal (or, hopefully, on another dead one).
Monday, November 1, 2010
Pet peeve of the day (off-topic)
(Disclaimer: I love having a blog. One of the neatest things about your own blog is that you can choose to write about whatever you want. Sure, the general topic of my blog is vet school, but now I'm going to write a post about something completely unrelated, and I can, because it's my blog. When you have a blog, you too can write whatever you want. So there!)
I got all riled up today during a midday trip to the grocery store. (I wanted to hit up the discounted post-Halloween sale candy and was particularly in search of candy corn, because I'm going to make these cute cupcakes for our next bake sale, that have yellow frosting with candy corn all around the edges to make a sun. But I digress.)
As I pulled into the supermarket parking lot, lo! I espied a prime spot almost immediately adjacent the door.
There was a woman parked into the spot next to my desired parking location. She had just finished loading her groceries from her cart into her car. As I waited patiently not 10 feet away, the woman pushed her empty shopping cart into the space I was waiting for, and leisurely strolled around to the other side of her vehicle and got in.
Now, come on.
The spot this woman had parked in was literally the second closest non-handicapped parking spot to the entrance to the grocery store. The spot I was aiming for was the closest spot, aside from its adjoining handicapped spot, which was now also semi-blocked by this woman's cart.
I cannot stand it when people do this.
How difficult is it for you to walk the extra 20 feet to bring the cart back to the store entrance? Or even to walk the 10-15 feet away from the store to bring the cart to the nearest "cart corral"?
Why block not one but TWO free, desirable parking spots, one of which is a handicapped spot??!!
What is wrong with people?
(Okay, time to step off the soapbox. Just don't let it happen again, lazy, irritating woman!)
I got all riled up today during a midday trip to the grocery store. (I wanted to hit up the discounted post-Halloween sale candy and was particularly in search of candy corn, because I'm going to make these cute cupcakes for our next bake sale, that have yellow frosting with candy corn all around the edges to make a sun. But I digress.)
As I pulled into the supermarket parking lot, lo! I espied a prime spot almost immediately adjacent the door.
There was a woman parked into the spot next to my desired parking location. She had just finished loading her groceries from her cart into her car. As I waited patiently not 10 feet away, the woman pushed her empty shopping cart into the space I was waiting for, and leisurely strolled around to the other side of her vehicle and got in.
Now, come on.
The spot this woman had parked in was literally the second closest non-handicapped parking spot to the entrance to the grocery store. The spot I was aiming for was the closest spot, aside from its adjoining handicapped spot, which was now also semi-blocked by this woman's cart.
I cannot stand it when people do this.
How difficult is it for you to walk the extra 20 feet to bring the cart back to the store entrance? Or even to walk the 10-15 feet away from the store to bring the cart to the nearest "cart corral"?
Why block not one but TWO free, desirable parking spots, one of which is a handicapped spot??!!
What is wrong with people?
(Okay, time to step off the soapbox. Just don't let it happen again, lazy, irritating woman!)
Eau de rotten Rottweiler
I have smelled like death all day.
It is not a good start to my week.
This morning I started Small Animal Surgical Anatomy (SAA). In contrast to last week's pig lab, this week's procedures are all practiced on cadavers.
Fresh cadavers.
Well, "fresh" in the sense that I mean "unembalmed." Not "fresh" as in "lack-of-stinkyness" or even "recently dead."
Although I did read the syllabus section on what to bring and wear to this morning's lab, I gravely underestimated the horribleness I was going to face.
Today we practiced spays and cystotomies on our cadavers. The recommendation was to select a shorthaired dog, for ease of seeing the structures we were looking for under the skin with only minimal clipping.
My partner and I were among the last students into the dissection room. So, unfortunately, we ended up with the last shorthaired dog: an 80-lb or so female Rottweiler.
I knew the day could only go uphill when, as the two of us (both short in stature) struggled to carry this uncooperative beast of a canine over to our "surgery" table, giant strands and globs of bloody froth from the dog's mouth and nose were flung all over my lab smock and unprotected jeans.
Ahhhh... nothing quite like the feeling of cold goo from a dead dog soaking through your pants and making itself at home on your skin.
If you thought that was bad, then be glad you weren't there for the rest of the lab.
Suffice it to say, when an animal dies, one of the first parts of it to decompose is the GI tract. Obviously, our GI tracts are full of nice friendly bacteria that, in life, help us digest our food into bits that we can absorb and use in our bodies. After death, however, those same bacteria go wild breaking down all the tissue they can get their grubby little non-existent hands on (anthropomorphize much?).
So when the 22 students nearly simultaneously cut open 11 rotting abdomens, the ensuing stench was truly almost vomit-inducing.
As I spent the next several hours with my hands almost elbow-deep in this dead dog's frigid, soggy, slimy, stinky abdomen, I kept thinking to myself over and over: "I want last week's pigs again!"
Here's the bright side: we sutured up the abdomens at the end of the morning, and tomorrow we're just working on chests (should be less offensive, odor-wise), with a brief entrance back into the abdomen at the end of lab to practice gastropexies. After our pexy, we get to eviscerate both the thoracic and abdominal cavities, and use the limbs for orthopedic surgery practice on Wed, Thurs, & Fri.
Don't you wish you were in vet school?
It is not a good start to my week.
This morning I started Small Animal Surgical Anatomy (SAA). In contrast to last week's pig lab, this week's procedures are all practiced on cadavers.
Fresh cadavers.
Well, "fresh" in the sense that I mean "unembalmed." Not "fresh" as in "lack-of-stinkyness" or even "recently dead."
Although I did read the syllabus section on what to bring and wear to this morning's lab, I gravely underestimated the horribleness I was going to face.
Today we practiced spays and cystotomies on our cadavers. The recommendation was to select a shorthaired dog, for ease of seeing the structures we were looking for under the skin with only minimal clipping.
My partner and I were among the last students into the dissection room. So, unfortunately, we ended up with the last shorthaired dog: an 80-lb or so female Rottweiler.
I knew the day could only go uphill when, as the two of us (both short in stature) struggled to carry this uncooperative beast of a canine over to our "surgery" table, giant strands and globs of bloody froth from the dog's mouth and nose were flung all over my lab smock and unprotected jeans.
Ahhhh... nothing quite like the feeling of cold goo from a dead dog soaking through your pants and making itself at home on your skin.
If you thought that was bad, then be glad you weren't there for the rest of the lab.
Suffice it to say, when an animal dies, one of the first parts of it to decompose is the GI tract. Obviously, our GI tracts are full of nice friendly bacteria that, in life, help us digest our food into bits that we can absorb and use in our bodies. After death, however, those same bacteria go wild breaking down all the tissue they can get their grubby little non-existent hands on (anthropomorphize much?).
So when the 22 students nearly simultaneously cut open 11 rotting abdomens, the ensuing stench was truly almost vomit-inducing.
As I spent the next several hours with my hands almost elbow-deep in this dead dog's frigid, soggy, slimy, stinky abdomen, I kept thinking to myself over and over: "I want last week's pigs again!"
Here's the bright side: we sutured up the abdomens at the end of the morning, and tomorrow we're just working on chests (should be less offensive, odor-wise), with a brief entrance back into the abdomen at the end of lab to practice gastropexies. After our pexy, we get to eviscerate both the thoracic and abdominal cavities, and use the limbs for orthopedic surgery practice on Wed, Thurs, & Fri.
Don't you wish you were in vet school?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
