Bio-Safety

United States veterinarians (non-primate) worry minimally about blood-borne pathogens and body fluids from our patients-- compared to our human doctor counterparts. Aside from the zoonotic diseases such as crypto, anthrax, rabies and some other stuff, we give it little thought.

Case in point... two days ago I collected urine from a dog, who then stepped into the collection pan and thereby flung urine into my face... and mouth. Blech. Disgusting as this may seem, I rinsed my mouth well but worried little. Dog could be carrying leptospirosis, but other than that I have few concerns.

Other case in point... bare-arm rectal exams in horses (you can fell rectal tears easier without a glove on).

#3) Slogging through manure at a dairy, palpating cattle for pregnancy, while eating an apple.

#4) Blood on a lab-work page is unsightly, but minimal concern.

#5) Needle stick from a bloody needle is a risk for bacterial infection, but not HIV.

Common Sense-less

I'm sure you have heard the comment that common sense is all too uncommon.

It, likewise, escapes me more often than is preferred.

Trying to pull a slippery dog tongue forward to intubate them for anesthesia... makes a lot of sense to use gauze to provide traction, and this is how I always used to do it. However, since I started working here I have fallen out of the habit because most other people don't do this, and most of the time it is rather unnecessary. And then I forget it when it would be beneficial.

Today I did the Buhner tape purse-string technique on a pregnant cow who had had (prior to the trailer ride) a vaginal prolapse. To safely and effectively perform this simple operation, it is beneficial to first 1) have the cow in a squeeze chute; 2) sedate the cow, but keep her standing; 3) do a caudal epidural to numb the tail, perineum, and pushing muscles that try to thwart the prolapse-reducing efforts.

We employed all of these techniques, I got the cow stitched up, and it was time to get her into the trailer. She wasn't having it, so we utilized tail twisting, pushing, rocking, vocalizing... and finally the hot-shot in mild to moderate amounts. She was part-way in, or at least up the ramp, and the owners had her neck tied and secured around part of the trailer. So I was kindly giving gingerly little zaps, and it wasn't doing much. Her owner advises to increase the juice... so I do... not a lot, but it was enough to make her mad.

And did she go into the trailer? Oh, no.
And did I get kicked? Oh, yes.

Cow-kicking. It's a special variety of the defense skill, and I had apparently forgotten (for this practical setting, that is) the ability of cows to kick so far to the side. Perhaps I should have zapped and immediately stepped back. Or decreased the duration of the zap. Or who knows what. But I was a little too close. Common sense. All too uncommon.

And now I have a nice curvy little red half-circle on my left hand and a swollen distal 4th digit on my right hand. Which indicates that I was holding onto the hot-shot with two hands, and that makes little sense. Llama bite, dog bite, cow kick -- at this rate I will have arthritis when I am barely middle-aged.

Human Operations

I will not say when or where, because of confidentiality and all that (actually, it is all very confidential from my knowledge, too, since I don't even know who was operated on). But recently I was privileged to observe a human orthopedic surgeon at work.

This all started as a concept of my mentor Dr. R, who suggested that I find a human surgeon to observe. This, I agreed, was a great idea. The surgeries are a bit (or a lot) different, but the surgical principles cross over to dogs, cats and wombats.

It so happens that one of our clients is a human orthopedic surgeon, and he was amenable to me hanging out and learning. There are lots of people to whom you can give your number and never hope to hear from -- no matter how enthused they seemed at the time of information exchange. This surgeon, on the other hand, followed through, which is excellent.

I had never observed human surgery, never been surgicated on myself except the wisdom teeth extraction and lip laceration. I really didn't know how I would handle human blood... was imagining the young veterinarian fainting in the surgery room (that would have been funny). But, fabulously, they use tourniquets (which we do in small animals as well, for limb surgery) and the blood letting was negligible during the surgeries. And even when there was blood, it didn't bother me. So far, so good.

Today I took in the entirety of a total knee replacement and part of an ankle fracture. I was wowed by the computer-based tracking devices which they attached to the leg and used to assess the knee movement, varus/valgus, slope, etc. This is something I had not heard of before... way too pricey to use in animals, but nonetheless quite intriguing. I expect the technology is a little bit like that used to track human movements to use in animated videos.

The precision of the procedure and the sterility involved was impressive. This whole idea of replacing a joint and having the limb function normally is very cool. And yes, I did pick up on principles to carry over to the vet side.

It was sad to miss most of the fracture surgeries, but I had been playing hooky from my clinic long enough and had to return.