Week Three in Somerset

This week began and ended assisting Dr. Travis Tull during two emergency surgeries. The first was an umbilical hernia repair on a two-month-old foal.  The owners brought him in because they suspected a part of his small intestine of being trapped in the hernia. After the initial work up and ultrasound of the hernia, Dr. Tull was confident that there was no entrapment, but we took the colt to surgery to repair it just in case. There was no small intestine entrapment and the procedure went very smoothly (I am getting quicker with identifying instruments and handing them off.) The foal recovered well and was sent home a few days later.

The rest of the week was filled with lameness exams and breeding mares. We had a wide variety of foot, fetlock, knee, hock, and stifle problems to deal with, which provided ample practice opportunities. Dr. Keith Brown is great about explaining what to look for and giving helpful hints. For example, this week he taught me that a front-end lameness that is more apparent when the affected leg is on the outside (i.e. lame on left front when turning to the right) is commonly associated with the knee. The lameness evaluations also provided practice at shooting radiographs. I am getting better and faster with my shots, but I still wind up redoing one or two in each set (always room for improvement!) It was also a full week for Dr. Jen Brown with her mare appointments. She uses ultrasound to monitor where the mare is in her cycle, if/when she needs to be short cycled, when she should be bred, and whether or not she is pregnant. I got the chance to rectally palpate one of the mares this week; I was pretty pumped that I was able to find the cervix and both ovaries, even if it took me fifteen minutes. Dr. Brown assured me that I would only improve with time and practice… Hopefully I will get more of that practice as the summer continues.

This week ended about two hours ago after the second emergency surgery with Dr. Tull. It was another foal, but this colt had somehow injured its hock and fractured its calcaneus. This was the first fracture repair (large animal or small) that I had ever witnessed. Dr. Tull warned me that it would be long and tricky, but even then, I was not quite prepared for a six-hour surgery. After much tugging, grunting, and yelling like a girl (which apparently gives you a little extra strength during orthopedic surgeries), Dr. Tull managed to coax the bone fragment back into place and secure it with a lag screw and metal plate. The foal recovered well, but he has to avoid any secondary injuries and fight off any infection before he is out of the woods. Next week begins in less than eight hours, so it’s off to bed for me.

Some actions shots of the calcaneal fracture surgery