Week one

Pardon my tardiness on getting this blog written!

Week one under the careful tutelage of Dr. Brad Hill and Equine Athlete began promptly the Sunday after final exams and there has been little down time since!  We traveled to Indianapolis that afternoon where we performed lameness exams and flexion tests on close to 30 horses.  Between Sunday and Monday, I lunged horses for Dr. Hill and his associate, Dr. O'Cull, jogged for flexion tests, scrubbed more joints than I can possibly count, and learned more about equine lameness in those 2 days than I had in the past month in vet school!  After completing our work in Indianapolis Monday evening, we drove to Cleveland so that we could begin working on another group of horses early Tuesday morning.

The goal in seeing so many horses was not only routine maintenance of these incredible athletes, but also preparation for the upcoming show season.  After performing each lameness exam and flexion test, Dr. Hill and Dr. O'Cull palpated nearly every inch of these horses to try and located the source of any problems.  If needed, we also radiographed and ultrasounded horses that palpated sore or flexed lame.  Anyone thinking about this position next year, will be extremely grateful that the last unit in first year anatomy is the equine limb! This was a great opportunity to apply what I had just learned in school! On this first road trip, I was not only able to scrub for and observe the more common joint injections, but also watch an ultrasound guided injection of the trochanteric bursa and sacroiliac joints.

On Sunday, we had a day full of surgeries.  After prepping horses for surgery, I was able to observe the arthroscopic removal of a sesamoid fracture, a closed castration, and the removal of a mass on an udder.  The most interesting case of the day was an arthroscopy of the femoral patellar joints on a yearling with trochlear ridge OCD.  With this horse, the doctors found OCD lesions on the caudal aspect of the patella that sits and glides over the trochlear ridge of the femur.  It was interesting to see the innovative ways the surgeon found to remove this lesion as it appeared incredibly difficult to get to with straight metal instruments.

I've now entered my 2nd week with Equine Athlete and I'm writing to you from Columbus, Ohio.  Equine Athlete is the official show vet and we've arrived early to make sure all the horses are happy and healthy after their long journeys. I promise this week there will be pictures and more interesting cases. Stay tuned and thank you for reading!