Theriogenology

I am on my next rotation: theriogenology, or in laymans terms, how to make things reproduce as fast as possible.

ok, maybe that's a biased view, but honestly I am morally opposed to 90% of the this rotation. It has been incredibly difficult for me to deal with--the first few days I was going from rage to tears inside--why am i on this rotation?!?! dear god?!?!

because it's required. Funny thing, our clinician said this rotation is required so we gain skills (mainly cattle palpation skills) for ambulatory--another required rotation where we ride around with a large animal vet. But i have set up a different ambulatory rotation in commercial poultry medicine. When i told our clinician that he asked "then why are you here?"

that's the question i ask myself every day.

Earlier in the week we worked up two male german shepherds who were not producing sperm. As theriogenologist, our goal is to find out why they aren't producing sperm and fix them so they can breed again. my answer is NEUTER!!! there are too many animals dying in shelters every day--i honestly don't give a $&*% about breeders and would love to spay/neuter every one of their animals.

The rest of our time we spend doing large animal stuff. mainly cattle palpations. "what is cattle palpation?" you may ask. Palpating cattle is where you stick your arm up a cows rectum (what i'm doing in the picture at the top) and find the ovaries to find out what stage of estrous or pregnancy they are in. It's a routine practice done on every single dairy cow and makes me want to become vegan. Cows tolerate it ,but they don't like it.

*sigh* i'm now in my defeated-tolerating stage and am trying to focus on the few cases we talk about that involve an actually sick animal. Trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel; meanwhile i'm forced to molest cows so i can get my license......

Necropsy!

So now i'm back from the emergency center. It was a good rotation over all. I learned some things and got to meet a bunch of people. I also got to work with the only avian specialist in the state so that was awesome! The only downside is that it's mostly interns and residents, so I didn't get to do as many things as I did at the first center--because they're all learned too.

Now I'm back at school and on necropsy rotation. A necropsy is like an autopsy, but on animals. It's not something I get very excited about, and I wasn't enthused going into this rotation, but I did get to do a necropsy on a cockatiel and a whooping crane this week--so that was awesome!! I also helped with a cow necropsy and did most of a horse necropsy by myself! It's morbidly festive! haha It's kind of a rough adjustment--as students were used to being very careful when having an animal open for a surgery--delicate tissue handling, taking your time, etc. But here, it's all SLASH and RIP! literally! I had no idea was i was cutting but the clinicians kept telling me to keep going! Big knife in hand, horse leg up in the air, i'm hacking off the leg, ripping into the abdominal cavity, slicing up the spleen and digging out the brain.

At least this rotation is appropriate for the season;)

surreal

The other day at the emergency center a dog came in with a pretty much pathognomonic posture called schiff-sherrington. He was recumbent (laying down) with his front legs stiff in an extended position and his hind legs were limp with flaccid paralysis. Essentially it means he has a spinal cord lesion where the thoracic vertebra meets the lumbar vertebrae--midback. As we talked to the owner and got set up for radiographs to diagnose it, we watched his signs get more severe--his legs got more stiff, he lost all reflexes in his hind limbs and his head started to bend backwards in what's called opisthotonus, another sign of schiff-sherrinton. We radiographed him and sure enough, his vertebrae had fractured right at the thoracic-lumbar junction, almost completely severing his spinal cord.

The surreal part was that I had studied schiff-sherrington the night before. It was almost creepy.

There is no treatment (not even palliative) for schiff-sherrington, so the dog was humanely euthanized. The owners were distraught--they had no idea how this had happened--the dog was outside on a line and the owners had gone inside for a few minutes only to return and find him like this. Sad story:(

OREOS!

just break complicated topics down into terms of food or beer and i understand

http://www.truemajority.org/oreos/


stupid war....

missing post...

Sorry, this one was supposed to go after the last wildlife post but before the emergency post.....

9.12.08

I’m sad to leave the wildlife clinic I’ve had a BLAST the entire time and loved every minute of the long hours. Besides learning a lot and enjoying myself, I’m glad I came out here because it solidified my desire to go into wildlife medicine. I definitely want to be a wildlife rehabilitation veterinarian. Now the only standing in my path is the shortage of jobs (less than a dozen full-time wildlife vets in the country…..it’s going to be a waiting game). But I’m going to apply to a couple wildlife medicine internships and a couple exotics/small animal practices and maybe some emergency practices for back-up. I’m crossing my fingers I get one I want!!!

The last two weeks I was back at the vet school on the small animal internal medicine rotation. I had some great cases and some sad cases. Since it’s a vet school (ie well-known referral center) we see extremes; I learned enough but the pace was a bit slow—or rather less efficient than I was used to. But it was a good rotation. I saw some sad cancer cases, some good immune-mediated disease cases that we were able to treat and some cases we never figured out. Good learning lessons.

So now I’m at a small animal emergency center. It is great! Everyone here is incredibly helpful and nice. Last shift, I got to place some intravenous catheters, watch a splenectomy surgery (taking the spleen out of a dog who had hemangiosarcoma), and suture up a wound by myself. Good times

Well I’ve got a long weekend of work ahead of me so I better get some sleep

emergency medicine!

So right now i'm at an emergency/referral vet practice near milwaukee. This place is awesome!! the staff is helpful, the vets are great teachers, and i'm not only learning a ton but getting to do a lot of hands on stuff.

The techs have been great in letting me draw blood and place catheters, and teaching me how to improve my techniques. I've gotten to watch several surgeries including a splenectomy, liver lobectomy, and foreign body removal. I've sutured up a laceration by myself and fixed up two anal gland abscesses. I've also learned about disc disease, severe rodenticide toxicity, other toxicities, seen a lot of CPR, and a ton of other stuff. The hours are great at this place and allow me to be there during the busiest times of the day.

In a week i go to another practice where the hours are not very good and i hear it's just a step down from this place--but as long as i learn, i'll have a blast:)

yay for emergency medicine!

to counteract my rant---something that makes me happy:)

I'm sitting here in panera studying when a 45-50year old man starts talking to a 60 year old man about how feedlot beef cattle and other industrial meat animals have the shaft. Feedlot lot beef cattle are fed a diet of pretty much pure corn and antibiotics. Feeding cattle pure corn produces stomach ulcers in cattle. These stomach ulcers are extremely painful and allow bacteria into the animals' bloodstream which can cause a miriad of problems and ultimately death. The antibiotics, labeled "growth promotants" are needed to counteract the ulcers to allow the cattle to live long enough to slaughter. If the cattle were allowed to live longer, the antibiotics wouldn't be able to last that long and the cattle would die of rumenal ulcers. The reason cattle are fed a diet of pure corn is to get them to grow faster so they can go to slaughter faster....less time spent raising the cattle means more money for the feedlot owner.

anyway--i'm sitting listening to this conversation in the conservative city of milwaukee and it makes me happy to hear that people are thinking:)

if this is news to you, here is a good, reliable link to read about it:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/meat/industrial/