RREH Surgery the final 2 weeks!!!

Hello Everyone! I am starting out with saying that my experience at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital was one of the GREATEST experiences of my life! The people are what really make this hospital an amazing place to be!!! I have learned so much from every single person here and I would not have traded my summer experience for any other hospital!!!! With that being said my last 2 weeks were jammed pack with fun surgeries and ambulatory experiences. To anyone considering RREH surgery next summer, you will gain horse handling skills you didn't even realize you needed!!! You work with predominantly young racehorses and it is a skill to handle them safely for both the people and the horses involved!! You will also be responsible for dropping horses, hoisting them, and placing them on the table correctly for various surgeries. You will learn how to clip, scrub, and sterile prep various surgical sites and then you will act as the technician in the surgery room helping the surgeon in any way that is needed. You will help the horses to recovery and then set up the room for the next surgery. If you are interested in surgery this is the experience for you because you will see some of the coolest surgeries around every day! Some other things I was lucky enough to learn was how to place arterial lines while the horse was under general anesthesia, place catheters, give pre-op drugs, give iv and im injections, draw blood, change bandages, flush mares, and castrate horses. If you are interested in learning anything equine, I recommend applying for RREH!

My last two weeks there were some interesting colic surgeries!

Pictured above is a horse suffering from multiple strangulating lipomas and unfortunately extensive necrosis to the small intestine. The first picture shows one of the many lipomas.

                                                                    Closing the orbit

                                                         Eye after it had been removed

                                              

 The next 3 pictures above are of a broodmare that suffered from a viral infection for many years in her eye. The virus was managed for many years in the infected eye until the damage was so extensive the decision was made by Dr. Latimer to perform an enucleation on the mare. An enucleation is when there is a surgical removal of the globe, conjunctiva, and nictating membrane. Before removing the eye she performed nerve blocks on the mare. Different blocks you can perform before an enucleation are an AP block (palpated dorsal to zygomatic arch), frontal block, retrobulbar block, and an infratrochlear block. This procedure is sometimes done on a sedated standing horse, but for this mare she was placed under general anesthesia. Then 2 incisions were made (one above the eye and one below the eye) and the procedure was performed. Due to the vascular nature of the orbit, it was essential to pack the orbit with gauze for at least 5 minutes. Then Dr. Latimer closed the orbit and placed a bandage on the mare (pictured above). 

Pictured above is a horse placed under general anesthesia to have a tieback performed. This horse was first run through the new CT machine at RREH to get a better picture of airway before surgery. The CT machine uses computer-processed combinations of many radiographs taken from different angles to produce cross-sectional tomographic slices of specific areas of a scanned area on the horse. It can produce a virtual 3-D image and basically allow the doctors the opportunity to see a specific area on the body without cutting the horse open. It will be interesting how CT images advance in equine medicine and allow new insights into disease processes. 

Above are a few pictures of Hats Off Day sponsored by Rood and Riddle!

Super cute draft horse yearling who was being treated for canker in all 4 of his feet and he didn't feel like going back to surgery!

                                                                 Triple Crown Winner! 

                                      I even had time to work my horse and he loved Kentucky! 

 It was a great summer and I want to extend my sincerest thanks to Dr. Embertson, Nicole Bone, and Alanna Mathes for allowing me to come to this awesome place! To Dr. Woodie, Dr. Hopper,
Dr. Bramlage, Dr. Ruggles, Dr. Latimer, Dr. Bras, and Dr. Friend, thank you for teaching me and letting me help out! To Dr. Schott for working so hard for all of the fellows and setting up this program! I truly believe we are so lucky to have this available to all of the MSU veterinary students! To Stephanie Welsh for letting me be your shadow and training me! You are the best mother duck!!!!! To the interns you are all amazing doctors and thank you for putting up with me at night and your early mornings especially! Finally, last but not least thank you to entire staff at RREH. I learned so much from each and every one of you and I can't thank you all enough!!!!!
That is all from me, hope everyone enjoyed reading and I encourage everyone to apply next year!

End of the Summer at Saginaw Valley Equine Clinic

Again I have been delinquent in my blogging.... but, my last few weeks at Saginaw Valley Equine Clinic were definitely full of experiences.  One of the most interesting, albeit the saddest, was a horse that presented with colic following a hard fall at a barrel race.  One of the differential diagnoses was a diaphragmatic hernia.  However, the owners were unable to have surgery for the horse so we euthanized it and performed a field autopsy.  It turned out to be a colonic torsion, a cause of colic completely unrelated to the fall.  Much of the colon was already necrotic and the horse would have required a lengthy colic surgery and bowel resection.

I learned a lot over the summer and am grateful that I was given the opportunity to experience practice at an equine specialty clinic!