Weeks 9 and 10
Weeks 9 and 10 were phenomenal in surgery! Knowing the
routine has helped me relax and enjoy the medicine aspect of it all. As a major
bonus I’ve been able to shadow anesthesia for a few cases and I’ve learned to
place arterial lines, hook up fluids and an EKG, intubate a horse, run a blood
gas and place an IV catheter. It’s helped me realize that equine anesthesia is
exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life!
One of the interesting cases we had in week 9 was a draft
horse that had a hind leg abscess that had been developing for a long time. The
goal of anesthetizing the horse was to drain the abscess and debride the area
so that the wound could heal properly. The horse was also painful because it
had a cracked hoof that had its own draining abscess. The pain involved with
these two wounds is too much to warrant treatment while the horse is awake;
hence the necessity of general anesthesia. Dropping a painful draft horse is a
dangerous process and there’s no getting around it. We simply don’t have the
strength to force a horse that big to move where we want it to if it doesn’t
want to. Thus, the primary goal of inducing this horse for anesthesia was that
no one get hurt. We do our best to guide the horse to the ground once it has been
induced and we keep our eye out for one another so that we can push the horse
away from anyone it’s falling towards. Luckily this horse was induced smoothly
and no one got hurt!Luckily this is most often how it goes. We hoisted the horse onto one of the colic tables with
extra support added because of the sheer size of the patient. Because abscesses
are inherently non-sterile and the wound wasn’t in danger of contaminating a
nearby joint, the procedure was completed in the transfer area between the drop
stalls and the surgery rooms. I wasn’t the primary technician on the surgery
and the hoof abscess wasn’t a part of the surgery either so I spent the surgery
cleaning out the hoof as best I could with sterile saline and gauze. The
surgeon was able to drain and debride the abscess and the horse recovered well!
The abscess that required surgical attention.
The hoof abscess before I cleaned it out.
Another exciting case was when I came in after normal work
hours to help tech a colic. The horse was painful before coming to the clinic
but began its visit with a colic workup that was ultimately non-surgical in
nature. Within an hour of leaving for its stall, the horse was extremely
painful and trying to throw itself on the ground. Thus it was destined for
surgery! As it was an older horse, and with few findings on the workup to denote anything else, the
most likely cause of the abdominal pain was a lipoma (a fatty tumor that wraps
around the intestine and constricts it, which becomes more likely with age). It
was an interesting and exciting experience, being only one of two technicians
in the clinic to help with the surgery (the other was an intern who was the
primary technician on call-it was her first time acting as tech, and I had
offered to help her out). Opening the room, preparing gowns and gloves, running
blood gases, grabbing instruments and suture was all up to just us. It felt
good to be there and make a difference for the horse! The horse did end up
having multiple lipomas that had constricted its intestines, but luckily color
returned to the affected intestines as the surgery went on. Once the lipomas
were removed, the surgeon was able to close the incision knowing that the
problem was fixed. We brought the horse to recovery and two interns helped to
recover the horse while the tech and I cleaned the rooms, transfer area, and
all the instruments we used during the surgery. Quite a job for two! It felt
great to know that we helped this horse through a colic to recovery though. All
in a nights work.
The lipomas that were removed.
Other interesting cases included an eyelid laceration and a
groin laceration that took a long time to fix!
The eyelid laceration.
The groin laceration.
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