Lacrosse Ball - Saving a Life

How have you gotten to use veterinary medicine outside of the classroom? Read about how Maddie Hileman, University of Illinois, saved a life!

When a client and patient are experiencing an emergency, they may find themselves at their most vulnerable state. Two years ago I was walking through a park when I noticed a panic breaking out over a dog in respiratory distress. The owner and dog had been playing fetch with a lacrosse ball, and the lacrosse ball had become completely lodged in the back of the dog’s throat (stuck behind the soft palate) and was now occluding the dog’s airway. I ran over as the dog started to turn blue and explained that I might be able to help. The dog could potentially only survive for less than a few minutes with an occluded airway, and the nearest animal hospital was over 25 minutes away. I knew then that I would have no other choice but to try to save him myself. I have seen multiple instances of a tennis ball occlusion, which can be fixed by poking a hole in the tennis ball with a blade and using the hole to reach something inside of the tennis ball to grab ahold of it before pulling it out. However, the lacrosse ball was a different situation as it is completely solid, hard, and rubber. After a few failed attempts to dislodge the ball manually with my hands, I realized we needed some sort of tool to get it out. I ran to my car to see what I could find, and I was in luck- A Swiss Army Knife! I fanned it open in order to get the corkscrew piece isolated. Acting quickly and calmly I used the corkscrew to get a good grip of the lacrosse ball before successfully dislodging it with a satisfying “POP!” noise. As the dog began taking deep recovery breaths I advised the owner to have their dog be further examined at the local small animal ER to check for signs of hypoxic damage. Although this was by far an unconventional approach, I was proud to have acted calming and quickly in order to save a life. Thinking back on this event, I realized that I wanted to dedicate myself to small and exotic animal emergency medicine.

Diagram of a Vet Student

Check out these creative and hilariously relatable sketches submitted by Hailey Curtis from Ohio State University!

AVMA Axon

AVMA Axon

This is a free source of information provided by the AVMA and has learning courses for SAVMA Members. (https://axon.avma.org) The information includes everything from leadership, career development, financial health, policy and practice, wellbeing, diversity, and MORE! Just takes a simple login with our SAVMA ID, and you'll find links to certificate programs, the My Veterinary Life Podcast and MORE!

What are you waiting for?! Go check it out!

Belize Zoo

Lily Thorsen, Ross University

My trip to the Belize Zoo was one of the most informative and exciting trips of my life. I got to apply so much of the information I learned during the previous five semesters of vet schools, but I got to apply the information to zoo animals instead of your typical dog or cat. This made it even more exciting and really drove the message home that the information we learn in school provides us with ability to navigate through most situations, regardless of the type of animal. 

During my internship, I was able to anesthetize a female howler monkey that was in poor condition. She had a luxated lens and several broken teeth due to head trauma, mastitis and a urinary tract infection. I was able to do an ultrasound guided cystocentesis on the anesthetized monkey, which was super exciting. 

We also sedated a jaguar, a four-eyed opossum, three peccaries, and 2 tapirs for routine physical exam, blood draw, fecal collection, parasite treatment, and treatment of any ailments. The blood draws really reinforced a lot of anatomy since we had to remember potential places where we could draw blood on all of these animals based on the domestic species to which they are similar. Sedating these animals required me to remember everything I had learned in pharmacology and anesthesia and required that I do a little research into what drugs are safe to use in each species. Running the blood work made me remember much of what I learned in clinical pathology. One of the peccaries had a red blood cell parasite that has yet to be identified, but it was very cool to see for many of us students.

 

Finally, we worked with crocodiles and birds. I had very limited experience with reptiles and birds prior to this experience, so this was initially very intimidating. One of the crocodiles had a wounded tail that we examined and rebandaged. I learned that crocodiles heal much slower than most mammalian species and that treating a wound on a crocodile is a constant balancing act of providing them with access to water but trying to keep their bandage dry at the same time. The other crocodile simply needed a physical exam and a blood draw, but this was still exciting since we had to draw blood from the basilar artery right above the spinal cord. The birds we cared for included ornate hawk eagles, harpy eagles, and a scarlet macaw, and they needed a blood draw and exam. Performing these tasks required that I remember what I learned during anatomy in second semester about properly restraining birds and where we can draw blood. This experience helped me get over much of my fear of handling bird and reptiles. 

I am very grateful for my experience at the Belize Zoo. It reinforced much of what I had previously learned and taught me much more about veterinary medicine and all of its vast fields. The trip also taught me a lot about the Belize culture, and I firmly believe that exposure to new cultures is always beneficial to becoming a well rounded person.

Spring 2019 EPDC Extracurricular Grant Awardees - Day 3

At Mizzou, we were able to host BOTH the Veterinary Nutrition Club and the Student Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Society with the support from this grant!  We started with a lecture from Dr. Jenny Grither about feeding critical care patients, then split into small groups to discuss case examples and practice placing NG tubes in 3D printed models.  Students not only got the opportunity to practice technical skills, but also went home with a packet of information on currently available commercial critical care options and sample cases.  The event was a huge success, thank you!

This November, the Student Veterinary Surgical Society at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine put on a lunch talk and accompanying wet-lab on the topic of 3D printing and modeling in small animal orthopedics. The lunch talk presented by Dr. W. Michael Karlin was attended by over 70 students and covered different scenarios in which he and other orthopedic surgeons have used 3D printing to prepare for surgery or supply prosthetics for patients. In the wet lab, 35 students had the opportunity to practice placing pins and cerclage wire to stabilize fractures using 3D printed models of dog limbs. The majority of the students who attended the lab were in their pre-clinical years, and, therefore, had limited opportunity to learn and practice said techniques otherwise. This grant was tremendously appreciated by all the students that were able to benefit from it and the supplies it provided. Thank you, SAVMA!