Hey guys! Just updating from my first week, Sorry for the delay, had to wait to see if I had approval for sharing some pictures!
This past week has been awesome, and I'm sure just like everyone else, it's been a lot of trying to get adjusted to the system and how everything operates. Littleton Equine has 16 total doctors, and 4 interns, along with techs and assistants for each. My primary roles thus far have consisted of a lot of ICU training. These will be my first couple weeks, then I will branch out and go with different doctors throughout the practice. There is also a Summer Show Series starting up at the large Colorado Horse Park that I will be attending, accompanying either a doctor or intern out there..! Also, every Monday morning, we have a topic presented by one of the doctors, last week was Cardiology (fitting for my fellow 3rd years haha) and that's followed by the rundown of good cases from the previous week. It's really fascinating to hear all of the knowledge that they all exhibit. Tuesday mornings, we are able to sit in on the interns' Journal Club, where one of them pulls an article from a journal and there's a general overview and discussion about it.
I have been able to be a part of some really cool operations and work ups in the hospital as well. There have been about a million and one colics since I've arrived, as I'm sure many of you are experiencing as well. Colorado is a very dry climate and predominantly a desert atmosphere, so sand colic is really big out here unfortunately. I have also been able to help with a handful of lameness exams, ultrasounds, radiographs, etc. There are so many doctors and so many things going on at one given time, that the opportunity to see some really interesting cases is always present. We had one horse present as a colic, but was progressively getting worse. Basically every test was thrown at him, he had all the bloodwork, a belly tap, ultrasounds, rads, the whole nine. He had a persistently increasing white cell count, so they were obviously worried about inflammation or an infection of some sort. Unfortunately, nothing conclusive was found and the decision was made to euthanize him. I was able to be there for that, and they found some pretty incredible results.
This entire liver lobe was completely obliterated, one massive abscess had just destroyed it. As you can see, the doctor is able to put his hands completely through the entire lobe..
This is just another view laid out, showing the extent of the abscess.
There was a small adhesion on the ventral colon, but it was unsure if that resulted from the liver abscess or if that was the initial cause which led to a hematogenous spread to the liver. Although, the necropsy was deemed a good decision, seeing as trying to remove that much liver would have been impossible.
We also had a couple surgeries in this week, one in particular was an emergency lameness, so took the horse into a pastern joint arthroscopy. Since it was an emergency, I was able to take on more a role of anesthesia assistant, which was really great getting some hands on experience with that. On ultrasound, there seemed to be some adhesion within the superficial digital flexor sheath that they were concerned about. The horse had just previously had this same joint scoped about 5 weeks prior up at Colorado State, but was brought here for time circumstances. Once they were in and found the potential areas of adhesion, it was all taken care of and removed, and all was successful.
I apologize for the sideways pictures, I will try to figure out how to change that for next week..! Other than that, it has been an awesome summer so far. Excited to see where the rest of these weeks go, and can't wait to hear about everyone else's as well!
-Taylor
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