Dr Ferox's life as a veterinarian

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 →]

I feel sorry for horse owners sometimes.

Several of them seem to live in a near-constant fear of colic happening to their horse, and fair enough too. Colic can be scary when it happens. Suddenly, for no clear reason, the horse which that person loves (or is worth a ridiculous amount of money) is gripped by pain. Pain that they can’t treat, can’t reach and could be caused by any number of things.

The fear of colic gets worse as the day goes on. The pain can keep up all night, even in a ‘good’ colic. The painkillers wear off and the cause is still there, so it comes back a few hours later. I don’t think there’s any other situation in the world where four people will stand around a horse for hours and burst into cheers when it poos. Even if it’s not a very big poo.

And that, my friends, is more or less why I spent an hour with my good work shoes covered in mud at the bottom of a muddy, slippery hill after discovering the electric fence was not as ‘off’ as previously claimed. [Read more →]