Dr Ferox's life as a veterinarian

Animals tend not to lie to you. Their condition usually apeaks for itself. For example, you can tell when a wound has been there for a week or more because it will have started to heal, and when somebody tells you “It just happened this morning!”, you tend to get a bit skeptical. You also become very dubious of people who bring you an animal that has obviously been sick for a while. You have to wonder why it is sick enough to see a vet now and not one or two months previously when it started to get sick. Why have they brought you this creature after it has been wasting away for almost 3 months? Why not at the start when it had a better chance of recovery? And why are you so desperate for a diagnosis so you can take it home on a weekend or a public holiday?

We have to wonder: If you loved your pet so much that you can’t stand to leave it in hospital for another day, why didn’t you love it enough a month or two ago when it started to get sick? [Read more →]

Today’s Vet Story is brought to you by Dr Ugg, a newly graduated small animal only vet with a penchant for surgery. Don’t be shy, leave him a comment.

A Hip Replacement as seen by Dr Ugg

A month or two back while procrastinating instead of studying for final exams, I wrote a few paragraphs on surgery and how it’s not that complex. Two weeks ago I started work, and I’ve been scrubbed in on a fairly major surgery: a dog with an infected uterus and breast cancer. It’s not necessarily specialist stuff, but involved. Just gaining a neat closure was a struggle, and I’m rapidly learning about all the little things that were going on that as a student I was unaware of, such as managing incisions early on to your life easier when it comes time to close, making sure your sutures are the same as the other vets in the clinic so clients are happy and have no reason to suspect that maybe one vet had to leave midway and the second half of the surgery was done by another, and the struggles of not having fancy equipment. But I’ve left a list on the boss’s desk and new surgical  toys are starting to appear! [Read more →]

(C) myrmician at www.Flickr.com

Being outdoors in Australia has certain charms and certain faults, expecially in the warmer weather.  It’s lovely and warm in the sun (perhaps a little too warm if you spend more than a few hours in it), not too bad in the shade, the scenery in the countryside is not to shabby and it’s genuinely very peaceful.

The downsides of the Australian climate is the vast number of creepy crawlies that want to bite you, many of which are poisonous.  Biting flies, ants, mosquitoes and other insects in addition to all our infamous snakes. These local residents can make doing sterile surgery “In the field” somewhat less than ideal. [Read more →]