Suturing: One stitch at a time !

June 3rd- June 4th

On Monday we officially started our first day of classes. We met our professor Dr. Eduardo who is a Doctor in Veterinary Medicine and has a practice in his own clinic. He did a pretty quick intro lecture on the different breeds of horses, cattle, sheep, etc and the types of diseases some of them might have, and then all the fun began ! Just on the first day we got to practice how to do sutures on a piece of raw chicken. I've never done anything hands on, so even if this was just chicken it was really exciting to me !

First day of class !

Alejandro playing with the dead chicken LOL

Me practicing suture techniques :)

We then headed to Dr. Eduardo's clinic to see him castrate a dog and spay a cat. I've never seen any type of surgical procedure done on an animal, much less been able to be in an actual surgery room, so I was completely thrilled. Seeing the blood drip as he cut kind of made me a bit woozy, but then then he actually let us practice suturing the cut back up, and I knew this was exactly for me. Then we had a family bring puppies to the office for their shots and dewormer, so I was actually able to give them their dewormer. It just couldnt get any better ! (I wish I could've gotten a picture ).

Today we had another quick lecture on doing physical examinations on horses, and then headed to Whisking Duck Farm to practice on real horses. We learned how to tell age of the horse by its teeth, listen to its heartbeat, found the number of pulses and respirations, listened to lung sounds, and administered medications. Fortunately our horse was in good health, everything seemed fine, except for a couple of ticks (those darn suckers !!) We proceeded to note everything down on his case record with all his history information and physical findings.

Our horse Whiley :) He's 5 yrs old

My roomie taking the horses temperature :)

After that we got to see another castration performed by Dr. Eduardo. I have to say the second time was definitely much easier to see, I guess things like this take time, you're not born a vet !

Future vets in the making

- Alejandra Villalobos