Life on the Wild Side
A new grad trying to figure out life after school. |
"Pop Culture and Fashion." Those were the two categories of topics standing between me and the surgery that I was hoping to perform. While I watched the surgery video and performed the surgery on a cadaver in lab in my third year, all the preparation in the world came down to whether I could answer the resident's questions about Pop Culture and Fashion. We started scrubbing at our respective scrub stations. I had asked my friends during anesthesia prep time about current pop culture, and we came up with "Justin Bieber sang a song about babies." That's how much time we had for pop culture in our clinical year. One minute of scrubbing passed. Two minutes of scrubbing... She asked me about the structure that I'd want to avoid cutting. Angularis oculi vein. She asked me what the first thing I'd want to do in surgery is. Make sure we are removing the correct eye. What the first step was? Lateral canthotomy. Five minutes of scrubbing... Name all the Kardashians and all their children. Are you kidding me? Was my first thought. My counter wasn't much better: How about I tell you all the famous people who sang the national anthem at the Nashville Predator games last round? This stopped the resident in her tracks. "Wait," she asked, "do you mean the Nashville Predators vs. the Pittsburgh Penguins?" Of course I did. After a bit more conversation, she changed my "pop culture" question. Name 4 Penguins players and the surgery would be mine! Fleury, Murray, Crosby, and Malkin were the 4 I chose, though I could name many more. And just like that, I got to perform my first enucleation on a live dog. The surgery, like any other, is many steps long, but basically consists of dissecting the soft tissues from around the eye, removing all of the conjunctiva (which can cause complications if you miss any), and severing the optic nerve at the back of the eye. Easier said than done. Removing the eye took about an hour and a half. Luckily, we didn't have any complications, but dissecting the soft tissue structures around the eye is delicate work, not for the faint of heart. Many owners are adamantly against removing their dogs' eyes. In this case, the dog was already blind and extremely painful, so removing her eyes made her significantly more comfortable and improved her quality of life dramatically. This little dog, who was so quiet and fragile before the surgery, woke up the next morning with more energy and less pain. With the start of every new rotation comes new challenges and new opportunities. This week I got to perform an awesome surgery, and see many other cases that I might see as a general practitioner. I am still working on perfecting my fundic exam (looking at the retina in the back of the eye) and figuring out which drugs best treat which conditions, both of which I'll hopefully improve on in my second week on the ophthalmology rotation. And for the record, I nailed the fashion question. Name three big fashion houses. (Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent, and Chanel). Thanks Aunt Debbie!
1 Comment
Kathy
6/21/2017 07:23:32 am
Love it!
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AuthorKatie is rotating intern at Atlantic Veterinary College in Canada. She graduated from veterinary school at UC Davis in 2018. Archives
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