Quarter 5, Week 4

Monday
Yesterday, I had class and we worked on some things in the lab including administering ear and eye drops, cleaning ears, and my partner and I even gave our dog a bath! :)

After class, I helped Dr. Morrow with intake exams.  I basically bring the animals in, restrain for the exam, bring them back, sanitize the exam tables, and bring in the next patient.  It is an awesome out of class learning experience because I get to learn about things that may not always be brought up in class.  For example, I watched further testing for hearing and eye sight on a cat that had its extended third eyelid such as the one below.

Helping out with the physical exams has also helped me learn more about each of the animals that come in each week, and greatly increases my experience with handling, restraining and more.


Tuesday
Today, I had our Lab Animal class (LAEPP), and we did mostly lecture.  During the lecture, we were talking about rats and mice, and they are prone to a condition called "chromodacryorrhea."  Our instructor asked if anyone knew what that meant and I did a quick medical terminology breakdown:

Chromo/dacryo/rrhea
Chromo = Color
Dacryo = tears
rrhea = discharge

I had heard of a condition before where rats excrete red tears and I announce "Red Tears?"  I was right!  I was told "good job!" and I also announced, "Medical Terminology for the win!"  It was extremely cool to use information that I learned A YEAR AGO and still apply it today.  Many people end up forgetting, but Medical Terminology is one of those things you need to keep using.  It was awesome!

Chromodacryorrhea

In Advanced Clinical Skills, we went over some lecture and did some basic cytologies.

Physical Exams
For our Small Animal Nursing and Nutrition Class (SANN), we have to perform a physical exam on a selected animal once a week.  We have to do a full once - over, Temp, Respirations, and Pulse (TPR), palpate (feel) different structures such as kidneys, bladder, and lymph nodes, and write up a physical exam form and SOAP.  A SOAP is a form of recording medical information:

S = Subjective (things such as 5 yr old female intact black lab, gentle, etc)
O = Objective (TPR, things found on your physical exam such as lacerations, dandruff, broken teeth, etc)
A = Assessment (Assess your findings)
P = Plan (What do we do next?  Prescriptions, vaccinations, toe nail trims, etc).

It is pretty intense, but it's something we get to work on and it's awesome knowing we will be doing this for the rest of our careers!

That's all for now.  I will try to write again this week.

Have a good one! :)