Creative Corner- Tohalah at Sunset

By Sarah Lehman

Class of 2012

University of Pennsylvania

Taken while on a RAVS volunteer trip

IVSA UPenn Thailand Trip 2010

By: Steven Fernandez

Class of 2013, University of Pennsylvania

The International Veterinary Student Association (IVSA) University of Pennsylvania chapter took on the challenge this past year to organize a trip with a contact from a Thai veterinarian and practice owner of Vet4 Polyclinic in Bangkok, Thailand. Our IVSA UPenn chapter was unaware that this veterinary practice is a well-known and respected clinic in all of Thailand. Vet4 was the first clinic in Thailand to start hydrotherapy for dogs and third to do total hip replacements. Hundreds of emails later throughout the entire academic year, IVSA UPenn sent 14 veterinary students and one local veterinarian to Bangkok, Thailand to start their hands-on training 9,500 miles away.

The trip consisted of 5 clinic days where the students were able to do full spays and castrations from incision to closure at no cost to the owners. We held a series of wetlabs using cadavers weeks in advance to prepare for surgery thanks to the help of our IVSA faculty advisor and surgery residents. Throughout the year we fundraised as much as possible to reduce the cost of the trip and we received lots of donations to offer better medical care for our patients. We brought extra luggage filled with IDEXX Snap tests, injectable Metacam (courtesy of Boerhinger-Ingelheim) for pain management, sterile surgery gloves, lots of frontline (courtesy of Merial), and sterile drapes (courtesy of GEPCO). Students learned how to keep their patient under anesthesia using basic drugs that were available to us. One of the major challenges with outdoor surgery was the incredibly high temperatures dogs had while recovering. Nonetheless, animals did recover and were sent on their way once they were able to walk.

Click to read more ...

Sex Change Operation?

By: Jennifer Blewitt

University of Pennsylvania, Class of 2013

The bulk of my experience before applying to veterinary school was working as an emergency and critical care technician at a near-by specialty and referral hospital. Some of the roles of a CC/ER technician include acquiring radiographs, running various in-house laboratory tests, performing in-patient treatments, venipuncture, and assessing triages.

At my particular clinic, the number of technicians working on a shift are split into either in-patient or out-patient care. On one particular day I was assigned to out-patients which meant I handled the incoming triages. One triage I will never forget was a roughly six-year-old male neutered cat that presented for a gunshot wound. I assessed the patient fairly quickly to make sure it was stable before asking the owner too many questions. The cat’s vitals were WNL so I began to examine the patient for the wound. The owner mentioned that it was located in the cat’s “hind area” so I searched for a minute or so before I asked the owner to physically point out where he had seen the wound. At such time, the owner leaned in and pointed to a specific spot on the patient. I stood for a moment and tried my best not to laugh as I told him, “Um, sir, that is not a gunshot wound…that is your cat’s vagina, and ‘he’ is in fact a she.” We awkwardly starred at each other for a few seconds before I said, “would you still like your pet to be seen?” He picked up the cat and then walked out of the hospital.

Clubbing of the Villi (a tribute to Lady Gaga and Johne's)

By: Katie Spillane

University of Pennsylvania, Class of 2012

Clinics

By: Dawn M. Fiedorczyk

Class of 2010, University of Pennsylvania

After sitting in classes for two and a half years entering clinics is a terrifying, yet exhilarating new experience.  All of the information that you studied and tried to store away in your brain now needs to be available, but not to regurgitate on a test paper but to use to save a life.  Nothing can quite prepare you for your first days in the hospital.  The new faces, protocols and requirements; it can all be very overwhelming.  However, as I get ready to graduate, I promise that it is conceivable. 

Just when you think you can’t possible take on another case, you can’t seem to muster the strength to do one more blood pressure on a feisty cat, give one more tube of banamine to a horse, restrain one more unruly parrot, talk to another overly concerned client for an hour after your day has ended, take one more order from a difficult resident or get any less sleep than you have over the past couple of days; clinics draw to an end and you wonder where time has gone. 

Click to read more ...