Vaccinations???

As a student, my view on vaccinations is a bit of a mixed one... I've not had enough experience in general practice to be able to tell you about the amount of adverse reactions to vaccines I have seen, although many of the vets I have spoken too list the reactions to vaccines as rare. I've seen many puppies cheerfully coming through, alongside booster dogs, and whilst some of these can have skin issues (another commonplace thing in veterinary practice) we can't actually be sure that the skin issue is related to vaccines! Half the time I hear the cry that the itchy dog has been caused by overvaccination. Perhaps it has, but without proof, how can you say?? 

My view on vaccines at the moment. I'm not too sure on homeopathic vaccines and the use of them in normal practice isn't commonplace, neither is the view on them a great one. However, again, I've not had any experience of them to formulate an opinion.. perhaps this should be something I read into at some point. I find that hollistic medicine is often a minefield- many of the articles seem very biased and not very evidence research based. Hence I am hesitant with this sort of medicine at the moment, as well as the fact that it is hard to find solid scientific facts. 

Personally I would take two approaches to vaccination for my own dog at the moment, as it just isn't worth the risk of some of the horrendous disease we vaccinate against; 

I would get all the vaccinations for my puppy and the one year booster. You may/may not want to include the optional parvovirus top up vaccine. I believe this is reccomended in the larger breed dogs, and may be a good idea. My dog didn't have it and was fine but if I was in a parvo outbreak area I think it would be a good idea. After this I would go onto the three year vaccination schedule. 

This involves the DHP vaccine in the first year- distemper, hepatitis and parvo, and then the following two years you only vaccinate against strains of leptospirosis that are common to your area (or should be these strains, not just some random strains). Interestingly, there has just been a license for a four strain leptospirosis vaccine as newer strains are gaining more weight. Classically the lepto vaccines have canicola and icterohaemorrhagiae (I think). These are the guidelines by the WSAVA currently. I believe they also recommend the third parvo vaccine as a puppy. 

The world of vaccines is an interesting one and controversial. This is my current stance and as a student I'm not very versed in the world. I'm sure my view will change and be moulded as I gain more experience in my practice years. Chow for now :)

Flying by.

I've been a bit naughty recently. I've not been updating my blog as much and I've not been as stringent with the note-taking. Whoops! 

I got to do half a dog and cat castrate today with someone showing me :D. Really made my day, alongside being asked to a party this Saturday. Should be fun as I've been on work experience only the last two weeks! I've also had a go at a few injections (although I'm terrified of hitting a blood vessel or a nerve or bone or something) and been shown fluids and bandaging etc :D. We've had some interesting cases-today we had a corneal sequestration in a persian x cat and a few other things such as a grass seed stuck in a dogs paw causing a lot of trouble!

I've learnt a lot the past two weeks I must say. I need to be a bit firmer with myself and actually go look up the drugs which are used and what they actually do. This is my plan starting from next week- strict strict strict! Thing is- the evenings are too short by the time I get home. I write this and its already nearly 10. After I've walked my dog, had tea and helped my boyfriend  a bit- time is nearly gone and its bedtime again! 

Beach and a moon- again. How pretty is the picture. 

Signing off now :). Will update again soon.

A whizz few days.

Cruciate Sutures for Skin Closure

The first thing to start my blog off is to remind myself of the following video and suture pattern. My vets mainly use this technique to close skin- it looks nicer and it holds the skin better :). They use a continuous simple stitch for the muscle layer so far I believe. 

Seen a lot of things of which I need to write a lot of it up from my book. On the first note the tetralogy turned out to be just a ventricular septal defect- still not brilliant but perhaps a tad better than the other prognosis from the scan. Perhaps I'd better start with today and then update on other things later on- maybe tomorrow. 

Today I saw a toy poodle. The poodle had some kind of abdominal muscle hernia which was easily palpable so came in overnight with fluids and a blood test. The dog was given vetergesic (buprenorphine) was a premed alongside ACP. The main induction drug this practice uses seems to be propofol. The dog had already been diagnosed with a ovarian adenoma (cyst???) before the surgery so the bloods were slightly essential. In surgery the dog had about 300ml of a straw brown watery fluid, adhesions between some of the gut walls to the kidneys, a slightly rounded and small liver and a mottled, nodular spleen. Not sure overall what is wrong with the dog as tests cannot be carried out. An interesting case to watch!

Next, there was a dew claw removal on a collie which had ripped the nail somehow. I didn't see much of this operation as I was busy watching the toy poodle. The post mortem on a cat that came in revealed a hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with secondary pulmonary oedema. The walls of the heart were visibly thickened. No other lesions were seen at the post mortem. I also got to practice a bit of suturing today- hence the link to the video above. So exciting! In addition I've been tutored in giving a few basic injections- all of which could have gone better but I'm hoping my technique will improve with time. 

Other interesting things about the inpatients today included a pigeon which had a broken leg, a bichon frise castration, rabbit molar rasp and a cat in respiratory distress from earlier in the week which appeared to be doing a lot better :). Interesting consultations today including a case of atopic dermatitis in a  Japanese Akita, chemotherapy injections for multicentric canine lymphoma in a rottweiler and also drugs for arthritis in a WHWT with suspected beginning Cushing's disease. 

First Day of CEMS

My first day was for definite a mixed bag of cases. What I really learnt is I need to actually carry my notebook around with me to jot down stuff as I really can't remember everything. A quick point before I forget it- an xray for the chest should be ventrodorsal, heart dorsoventral (not sure on this one entirely). The main cases outstanding to me were:

a) Tetralogy of Fallot- a congential heart condition that is pretty rare. Pictured above with the four heart conditions. Found in a nine year old cat- cat was asymptomatic. Seen via ultrasound to diagnose without sedation. Also crosses with the colour doppler machine which can picture blood flow with blue and red streaks. 

b) Cat with respiratory distress. Bronchoalveolar lavage for a sample and xray was performed. Xray showed little donut shapes in the bronchoalveolar pattern. Vets main differential was cat asthma- or an allergy. 

c) Staffy with auricular haematoma- leech therapy was used but didn't work as the leeches wouldn't attach as the owner didn't want a general anaesthetic due to the dog having an aggressive urothelial carcinoma. Drained without sedation with a needle (larger) and syringe. Inner ear aspect. Local pain relief used. 

d) Bulldog- suspected brachycephalic syndrome. Six months old dog with an increasing cough, off food and water especially in hot weather. Given antibiotics and NSAIDS as an injection. 

e) Cat which had a erythrocytosis disorder with too many rbc and a high PCV. Seemed cured via leech therapy. 

Just a documentation of the cases I saw and some of the outcomes to reflect on at a later stage. :). 

First Post in a While :)

Sorry I haven't posted for a while, but I've not really had many interesting things vetty related I've done with being off for two weeks before placement!

Placement starts tomorrow. I had slight issues with getting into contact at first but hopefully its all sorted now :). Slightly nervous but at the same time it should be really good to see in action the things that I've learned over the first three years. I plan to make notes on each case as I go along and do some background research if I can :). I hope they're really good with me, let me do some things and aren't too harsh.. nerve wracking times!

I've seen one or two films in the past two week- now you see me and despicable me 2. Both of these films are worth the watch definitely. Now you see me is an interesting concept about some magicians who rob banks- I think this is the better of the two films I saw. Despicable me is not quite as good as the original version but it's still pretty good as a sequel and the minions are as delightful as ever! 

Had a few delightful days with the boyfriend in this really sunny weather. Part of me doesn't want CEMS, I'd slightly rather be on a beach somewhere with some cocktails! 

Results and Onwards

Hello.

       Well I passed my results- YAY. Overall I kept up my average of about 73% or so, so pretty pleased about that. My average seems to get better and better- win :). Not sure how much I'll keep this up in clinical years though. At the moment I'm trying to get back up to speed with my driving for one, which I think is going fine, although my dad really doesn't help. I've just bought a second hand satnav- the Tomtom IQ XL version 2 or so. Not sure what it's like, but the picture is above so we shall see eh :). 

Definately more stressed at home- oh the joy. Also trying to book placements for next year which I'm finding quite hard at the moment as farm vets and closeness are getting to be a bit like gold-dust. I do not envy the fact that surrey are increasing their intake- it is going to stretch the quality and availability of vet practices, especially farms, even thinner. When you take into account the amount of years at each vet schools doing CEMS and then the applicants on top of this who need the work experience to get in- the picture doesn't look too good. Whilst surrey and their course sound quite good from the comments I've heard from the open day- I remain skeptical.