Hi! My name is Jourdan and I am at Peterson and Smith Equine Hospital in Ocala, Florida for the summer for twelve weeks. This past week has been very busy with lots of Thoroughbred foals and yearlings in the hospital. The hospital has several clinicians that are very eager to teach and help you learn! It's hot and humid and the days are long but so far it has been very rewarding and in only such a short time.
Day 1
Today I arrived at the hospital! I met with Ashley and then got a tour of the clinic. It is a lot larger than I expected! The clinic consists of Clinic Stalls, where colic horses are mainly kept. Then there was the Surgery Barn, Medicine Barn, Sports Medicine Barn, and Annex (isolation). After my tour, I followed Ashley to where I am staying for the next 12 weeks. They put all of their working students and externs in houses about 2 miles from the clinic! It is a really short drive and the houses are nice. I got settled in and met some of the girls that are just finishing up their internships from the Spring Semester.
Day 2
Today I got to the Med Barn at 7:30am to work with the technician, Michelle. It started as a very busy morning with several appointments and treatments. The first thing we did was went to the treatment area to do a standing AO Tap on a neurologic Thoroughbred. Two of the doctors were testing the Thoroughbred for EPM. This treatment requires an ultrasound machine to locate the area to collect Cerebrospinal fluid from the poll area, then they took approximately 20mL for testing. After this treatment there was another appointment with Drs. Clark and Miller to gastroscope a foal. After the foal’s appointment we had two miniature ponies come in for lameness exams with Dr. Clark.
After the busy morning of appointments we had several horses to treat back in the Med Barn. My personal favorite was an adorable 7-week-old Miniature filly and her mother. In the Med Barn they have several horses in for Ophthalmologic issues that require around-the-clock care. The Miniature filly was super easy to treat every time, and when we were done we were able to give her tons of belly rubs like a dog.
Day 3
Today I got to work with Michelle again! The day started out with an eye exam for the Miniature filly from yesterday. Dr. Clark had to trim her corneal ulcer and then she was all set to go back to her stall! After this, an appointment for chest radiographs came in. I got to assist Drs. Clark and Miller with the radiographs and then Dr. Clark walked through them with me. This particular horse had an abscess in her lungs that has been healing over the past few weeks and this was confirmed through both radiographs and an ultrasound that I got to watch. Michelle is really helpful and allows me to watch the doctors and the treatments as much as I can while we are holding horses for the appointments. This has helped me learn a lot over the last two days!
Immediately after this the hospital got extremely busy, within the next hour I believe four emergencies came in! It is a lot different than MSU because the emergencies arrive in 15-20 minutes after they get the call, so you have to act quick to get ready for them. There were two that came into the Med Barn, a foal with a septic joint and another foal that came in for a melting corneal ulcer. I got to go to the eye foal’s initial appointment, where Dr. Kent trimmed her ulcer and made sure her treatment plan was sufficient. The rest of the day was spent treating Optho horses, doing monitors (TPR) on the Med Barn horses, and administering IV fluids to foals.
Day 4
Today was my first 12 hour shift! Usually we work six 12 hour shifts and then get a day off, but since I am just in my first week we get a lighter schedule for training. The weekends we always work 12 hours no matter what because there are only a couple technicians for the whole clinic and they need as many extra hands as we can get! While today was busy, I learned a ton and got to do a lot of treatments! There was a critical foal that came in last night for colic who had to be separated into a foal box in order to “reset” his GI tract. He also had a contracted leg, so I learned how to sit on a foal while Dr. Miller put a splint on the foal’s right forelimb. Dr. Miller’s splinting advice is that the Elastikon, a sticky tape that is used to hold the splint on, needs to be as tight as possible. He then quizzed me on why we need to feel the toe every few hours when the splint is in place. We’re looking for the toe to be warm to ensure that the Elastikon was not placed too tight on the leg. After the splint was placed, the foal got very rambunctious and pulled out his nasogastric (NG) tube while he was being refluxed. Dr. Sullivan, one of the interns, had to replace his NG tube. Every time the doctors place a foal feeding tube, radiographs of the abdomen have to be taken in order to ensure that the tube is in the right place. Dr. Sullivan took the rad and then let me look at it and asked if I thought it was placed correctly or not!
Besides the foal that needed an NG tube, another horse in the Clinic Stalls had to have one placed as well. Before the tube was passed the mare was given Xylazine to calm her down. I was then asked about different types of sedation drugs. Being only familiar with a few, Dr. Sullivan introduced me to a few others that they commonly use at the clinic! When the tube was passed, Dr. Sullivan checked her for reflux and then gave her Epsom Salt. The Epsom salt was used to draw fluid into her GI tract in order to help break up an impaction as she was in for colic. After the tube was passed, Dr. Sullivan quizzed me on how to know the NG tube was in the proper place! She said that the trachea has no resistance (“like a hot dog being thrown down a tube”) while the esophagus has a lot more resistance as it collapses around the plastic tube.
A new skill that I learned today from the technician Donna was how to milk mares. When the foals are muzzled the mare has to be milked out by hand every two hours to ensure her udder stays soft and that she keeps producing milk! I also got to give an IM shot to a 3-day old foal under Donna’s supervision.
Day 5
Today went about the same as yesterday. The morning started out really busy taking radiographs with Dr. Cooper of a foal’s skull, chest, and abdomen out in the annex barn. After this it was lots of Optho horses to treat, foals that need fluids, and adorable hand walks for some really sweet mares and foals to fill the rest of my day! The little critical foal in Med Barn needed another splint today, where Dr. Sullivan placed it and let me know that another method of straightening out a contracted leg is to use Oxytetracycline on the older foals. This was not a method of choice for him as it is very tough on the younger foal’s kidneys and all he needed for now was the splint. If the splint did not show improvement, they would use this when he is older to help relax the contracted tendons! We also went over the different types of limb deformities. Besides that, the rest of the day was fairly routine with no new patients since Friday!
Day 6
Today I was in Med Barn with Michelle again! I have gotten really comfortable in this barn and was able to help her out very efficiently. I started the day by taking three horses down for their eye appointments (one older gelding and two mares/foals)! All of them had really improved ulcers and did not have to have any further trimming of the ulcer. The doctors on their cases were extremely happy with how these guys did through the weekend and talked me through everything they were going over! I helped hold eyes open for pictures and got to look at the differences between when the horses presented to the clinic up until that moment we were checking them! After these appointments there was a foal intake that had to go to Annex due to diarrhea. I got to hold the mare while the clinician worked up the emergency case! It started storming so bad during this time, I do not think I have ever seen rain come down that hard before or thunder so loud. Florida weather is definitely way different than Michigan weather, and that has been my hardest adjustment thus far.
After the foal intake and the storm settled the rest of the day was routine, treating eyes and giving fluids to foals. We take TPRs at 8am, 12pm, 2pm, 4pm, 8pm, etc. depending on how sick the foal or horse is. I have gotten a ton of practice taking heart rates and holding high-spirited foals!
Day 7
Today I was called in early to assist Dr. Miller and Donna taking post-op radiographs on a yearling Thoroughbred. All of the surgery horses are muzzled at 5am and they were quite the noisy crowd this morning, banging their muzzles on the doors of their stalls. After I was done in the surgery barn, I had to run up to Annex to administer fluids to the emergency foal from yesterday. Eventually we reached 7am and I got to attend journal club with all of the doctors. I definitely did not know what to expect but caught on quickly. The doctors choose journal articles that are interesting to them and present it to the rest of the doctors. Something I learned is that you can diagnose lumbar vertebral body fractures using a rectal ultrasound!
When journal club was over, I went to help Jodie, the technician in surgery barn. I got to help her take weights on a few of the yearlings, hold for sedation, and see their prep for catheters. Since they were not too busy in surgery barn, I went to Annex to help administer fluids to the foals. When we were all caught up I was able to go watch the beginning of a tie back surgery. After this, they brought the horse back to his stall and “oiled him” by placing an NG tube to administer mineral oil.
After my time in the surgery barn today I spent the rest of the day in the Annex barn, weighing foals with the technician Laycee (an MSU grad!!) and administering fluids.
Day 8
Today we had Dr. Brooks, a veterinary ophthalmologist, in for lots of eye appointments! I held all the horses for Drs. Brooks and Clark. After the eye appointments we had a foal with a septic joint come in. They send the joint fluid to the lab and we hear back almost immediately with the results. This foal was not septic, as his lab values were within normal limits. The rest of the day was spent doing routine treatments in the Med Barn and picking stalls, filling waters, and haying all of the horses.
Day 9
Today is my first day off! I spent it getting ready to transition for a week of being on night shift.
