Large Animal side of Mosier Hall
This week, the second half of my internship began and I am now a part of the equine rotation. The equine veterinarians deal with horses of all walks of life and, apparently, the occasional miniature donkey…? I have officially decided I need one, by the way.
Miniature donkey
This week has brought cases from lameness and laminitis to dentistry, colic, and gastroenteritis. I could not possibly be enjoying myself more. And clearly the equine vets couldn’t be either because they are some of the most enthusiastic people I have ever met. I am learning so much and one of the most fun things about working with large animals is that I am able to be more hands on, seeing as it would be harder for me to hurt a horse than a Chihuahua. Now, I’m not downplaying a small dog’s ability to get angry, but horses are more likely to hurt me than I am them.
Radiograph of Horse’s Head
If there was only one thing that I could tell you about the treatment plans of equine vets it would be that they like to lavage things. And by “like” I mean they do it all the time. Now lavage sounds like a very fancy procedure that you would go to the spa for, but then you find out what a lavage actually is: the washing out of a body cavity with some sort of sterile, medical solution and, from what I can tell, it feels really strange to have fluids rapidly pumped into the part of your body that is causing you the most trouble. “You have a pitchfork handle puncturing your abdomen? Awesome! We’ll just pull that out and lavage your abdomen to get the bacteria and free fluid out” (yes, this actually happened, because horses get injured in only the most interesting of ways). “Your sinus is developing an infection and pitting edema? Oh, great, let’s lavage that too.” I am not at all a squeamish person but sinusitis discharge is the most disgusting smelling thing in the world. Let’s be clear, large animals have some interesting smells, but infections are by far the worst and we have seen a lot of them this week.
Scrubs and cowboy boots are currently all the rage on the equine vet side of the fashion industry; we also enjoy a practical pair of khakis and a polo shirt that most definitely will get stained by something. These have become regulars in my world as the week progresses. It’s fine as long as I don’t think too hard about the elementary school uniform flashbacks that I seem to have triggered with the pants, belt, and tucked in polo.
I have seen so many cases over the course of the week, and was able to get in on a few surgeries. One was the removal of an abscessed tooth through the mandibular jawbone. They drilled through the bottom side of the horse’s jaw and chiseled out the tooth in question (the tools for this procedure are basically glorified Father’s Day presents). The second was an enucleation, or the removal of an eye due to infection or trauma. This horse had lost eyesight and this surgery was one of the goriest I have seen… sorry, probably a little TMI… lucky for you all, I’m not allowed to take pictures of procedures here in the VHC because that’s disclosure of patient information which I could get in a whole lot of trouble for.
Me Taking a Horse’s Vitals
The last was a castration that, ironically, was performed by female surgeons and students with the only males in the room being the horse and the anesthesiologist. I saw a few more surgical patients because of the fact that a lot of the cases that come in with signs of colic (where the intestine or colon gets wrapped or turned over and cuts off blood supply, killing the animal) or gastrointestinal problems are serious, time sensitive surgeries that need to be performed. Sadly, I was not able to watch any of these being performed because I arrived on Monday, which was day two post-operation of one colic case that came in that turned out to be critical. The other operation-worthy colic was performed late at night so I was not able to be present for that either.
The vet students and professors here in this hospital are exceptionally helpful, and some of the most amazing people I have come in contact with. And that means a lot coming from a person who would prefer to talk to a cow over a person. That’s mostly how I know this profession is for me. Veterinarians are so exceptionally passionate about what they do and I am so happy to have the chance to take an inside look at what it is that I want to do for the rest of my life. I cannot wait to see what adventures next week has in store.
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