Small Animal Medicine

Well, I've just finished my two week block of Small Animal Internal Medicine. It's been very enjoyable but very tiring - I haven't had a full 8 hours sleep for the whole time! We've seen lots of interesting cases and most of the animals have survived to tell the tale. There are so many things that you can do for animals now that could never have been dreamed of before.

We've had lots of dogs coming in with vomiting and diarrhoea for several reasons, a dog with classic Cushings disease, a dog with Leishmaniasis (a parasitic disease transmitted by sandflies around the Mediterranean - the dog had previously lived in Spain), animals with kidney failure, dogs with liver shunts, and a few other weird and wonderful conditions.

I have managed to do a couple of consultations and most of my patients have been very nice, although one was a bit aggressive. My nicest patient unfortunately had to be barrier nursed so I had to wear gloves and an apron when handling him. The green apron has turned my lab-coat yellow which I'm hoping isn't permanent!!!

It's been very hot and sunny this week so it's been a shame to be stuck inside all the time, particularly when the air-conditioning stopped working and the heating came on! Overall, however, I've had a very enjoyable and interesting week.

Farm Animal

I am now three weeks into my four week farm animal rotation. I have spent one week in Wales with the rest of my sub-group (four others) learning about investigating herd problems. We spent one day on a farm looking at the condition of the cows, went to the cattle market in Carmarthen one morning which was really interesting. The poor little Friesian bull calves only go for around £5 which means the farmer is really making a loss on them.



When we got back from Wales, we starting working in the farm animal hospital and practice which is based in Potters Bar. We had 3 in-patients - a pygmy goat with a blocked bladder (apparently very common - it also occurs frequently in cats), a goat with tooth root abscesses and a 3-legged alpaca. It was a very enjoyable week, taking responsibility for the management of the cases, but there were not many calls to go to farms which was a shame.


Last week we merged with another group of 4 students for reproduction seminars and practicals. This was based mainly around dairy cows and horses but we did a bit of sheep fertility work as well and had a very interesting seminar about how feeding affects fertility - involved looking at different grasses and learning what nutritional value they have. How many other courses have you sticking your hand in a robotic cow one day and identifying grasses the next?!

This week we go on a visit to a farm to investigate a problem and write a report which we then present at the end of the week. I am going to a pig farm tomorrow. Should be interesting :-)

Rotations

Well, as usual I haven't updated this for ages! A lot has happened since February. I have now finished lectures and have started my year of rotations. This involves splitting the year into 4 week blocks and spending each block doing a different discipline. We have 3 1/2 blocks of small animal, 1 block of farm animal and 1 1/2 blocks of horses. We also have 2 weeks of pathology and 2 weeks of anaesthesia. The rest of the time is taken up with work experience and writing a research report. At the end of each week of rotations, we receive a mark which counts towards our finals.

So far I have done a week of neurology, a week of night work, a week of dermatology and a week at the Blue Cross animal hospital in Victoria. I have really enjoyed this and have learnt a lot. It's really great being able to put things that we have learnt into practice and I find I know a lot more than I think I do!

Next week I am back off on work experience, spending two weeks with horses and two weeks at a PDSA animal hospital. Hopefully I will learn even more during this time and it will be nice to stay with old friends who I haven't seen for ages.