7/7 – 2nd rotation: Small Animal Medicine

Finally, an interesting rotation. To be fair, apparently there was another professor in derm who just didn’t work in the hospital the previous two days, who is awesome. He let Alex and Amber get all sorts of hands on experience. So, even though a lot of the time they were seeing the same things, they got to do the skin scrapings and do the fungal cultures themselves. I feel like I may have enjoyed my time much more had I been allowed to do more than stand there, listen, and ask questions.
Anywho – on the 7th I saw all sorts of cases.
1)

Dog with Parvo. This dog had been diagnosed with parvo virus on 7/3, had been given fluids and was recovering, however it still wasn’t eating. He looked a lot better and was scheduled for more fluids and he would be fine.

2)
Dalmatian-esque dog with Parvo. This verse is the same as the first – only he was diagnosed on 7/4. Recovering as well. I asked the doctor about it and he said that most of the purebred dogs with parvo will die but a lot of the mutt-type dogs (especially ones that look like dog #1) will recover. He thought that they may have some sort of genetic immunity to the strain of parvo in the area, where purebred and imported dogs do not. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true, too. All the Labradors I’ve seen with parvo thus far do not look like they’re doing well…

3)
Doberman imported from Argentina – nosebleeds, tick infestation, extreme weight loss. Two potential diagnoses: erlichiosis or immune mediated thrombocytopenia (not enough platelets to form a blood clot and stop bleeding).

The only light box I’ve seen so far has been in orthopedics in the surgery suite. For small animal medicine, they have to make due with sunshine:


4) another Doberman – anorexia – diagnosed with babesia. Trating with imidocarb previously. Here’s what babesia looks like: (thanks clin path!)


5)

‘Cookie’ the lab – a trained police dog (bomb sniffing) with unexplained fever. Police dogs are really well cared for here. They are always up to date on vaccines, have flea and tick preventatives, etc. They are also given exams by their handlers daily and their temperature is taken every morning and evening. This dog had a fever in the morning but not when it presented at the hospital, though it did have lymphadenopathy (enlarged lymph nodes). They did blood work on it was well as look for hemic parasites. They love their police dogs.

6) [no pic] miniature pinscher with abdominal pain and fever. Diagnosed with gastritis and given doxy.

This all happened with one doctor in 30 minutes. That’s what happens when you cut the chit chat out of appointments.

7)

This next case is kind of interesting, I suppose. It’s a spitz who has a history of circling for the past two weeks to the right, is blind on the left, and is losing vising on the right. They diagnosed it with a history of vestibular disease at a previous date and the circling resolved. However, at the recheck today, Jen felt the abdomen and said it felt like there was a little fluid, and I thought it did too, when the cardiologist was looking at the case, he sent it off for an EKG and abdominal ultrasound. It had a scant amount of fluid in its lungs, but ended up having a first degree AV block – so now we know at least and can watch. I don’t think anything was prescribed at the time.

8)
Labrador with DCM

9)

tan and white dog with submandibular mass, splenomegaly, seizures (long term complaint) of increasing frequency, circling to the right, slow to right the front paw on the right, and is blind on the left side, but still maintains papillary reflex. They sent it off for an abdominal ultrasound and ran bloodwork. I didn’t follow the dog so I don’t know what happened.

10)

Dachshund with CHF. Ran an EKG and found atrial fib (absence of a p wave and at an irregular interval) This dog belonged to an owner who was a physician… they’re always tough clients because they think they know better than the vet. The dog had already been on digoxin but the owner had changed the dose on her own. She was having a heated discussion with the cardiologist about it when they saw the ekg. He took the dog off digoxin and prescribed an alternative medication (not sure which).

11)



Parrot – imported from Africa – lethargy, liquidy white green diarrhea with red (blood). Presumptive Newcastle disease, but giving antibiotics for 2ndary infections.

12)
Kitten with bilateral ocular discharge, 4 days of anorexia, dehydration (sunken eyes). Given fluids, amoxicillin, and dewormed.

There were more but at a certain point I just stopped taking pictures.

Oh, and when we were walking between small animal and the referral building where echo is, we saw a cool cow:


Look at her jaw line, isn’t that crazy? And her horns are kinda interesting too.

We came home for lunch and everyone was really beat, so when we went back to school in the afternoon and had to go to biotechnology we were all kind of bummed. This time we saw a woman prepare a cell culture from chicken embryos. It would have been interesting had we not been required to be there and watch a 10 minute spin in the centrifuge, or a 10 minute chill at 4 degrees C in the fridge, or a 10 minute stir on the magnetic stirrer...
Here’s a 10 day old chicken embryo sitting in MEM:


But, half way through we had to go to Pathology (thank god!) and got to look at some impression smears from the distemper case the day before. Oooh! And when we were waiting for the path professor to show up, we saw this giant spider outside his office in the atrium:



It was probably 2.5 inches long including legs. Maybe bigger. And we were all staring at it and taking pictures and some professor was concerned about what was so interesting in the atrium. He looked over, and just said “oh, spider” very nonchalantly and walked away like there wasn’t a giant freakin’ spider there.
The Path atrium is really nice looking too:




When we were looking at path slides, the professor was on the lead microscope and four people sat at the other attached ones. I watched on the computer monitor since having other people drive my microscope makes me a little ill and disoriented.


At 4 we went back to biotechnology to have some more boring time:



Finally we went home and since we were all super tired, we didn’t do anything at all. It was fantastic.

And now for something completely different:

There are lizards/salamanders everywhere.
Lizard in the ceiling
Outside our apartment at night:




Oh, and I did laundry. I didn’t want to leave my clothes outside to dry since it’s been raining so I made a clothes line in my room. Since I ran an extra spin cycle on the washer, they were fine to hang up and not drippy in the least.


Then, I passed out for the evening. It was wonderful.