Life on the Wild Side
A new grad trying to figure out life after school. |
My two weeks on shelter medicine were a combination of "What my friends think I do" and "What I think I do" (albeit on different species in each instance.) Kitten season hits shelters hard during the spring and summer months, and that means lots of adorable animals to cuddle with. When I arrived at the shelter each day, there was a new batch of kittens to cuddle with. What a tough life, I know. From the chill orange males that wanted to cuddle in your arms to the playful calicos that were sweet on the outside and feisty on the inside, there was always something to look forward to.
These kittens posed a unique challenge though. Because California has a law that requires all animals to be spayed or neutered prior to being adopted from a shelter, and the fact that kittens are at an increased risk of catching life-threatening diseases the longer they stay at a shelter, we were tasked with the important job of sterilizing the kittens so they could find their forever homes. Male kittens are easy to neuter. They don't even require a completely sterile surgical field. Kitten neuters themselves take less than 5 minutes to complete. On a day we deemed "Testicle Tuesday," I neutered five male cats in the span of less than 30 minutes. (The time constraint involves a lack of multiple technicians to anesthetize the kittens, not my surgical skills.) The kittens wake up from anesthesia in a matter of minutes, and when you check on them at the end of the day, you can hardly tell they even had surgery! Each female kitten poses a unique difficult and learning opportunity. Because we spay the kittens at a really young age, some are only 1.5 pounds at time of surgery! Tiny kitten means tiny incision, and that doesn't give you much room to maneuver around the abdomen! On one kitten, I clearly remember making the skin incision, but when I got down to the body wall, I saw her abdominal organs! Her body wall was paper thin and translucent. I called the supervising doctor over to confirm that I hadn't already cut through the body wall, and she guided me through the most nerve-wracking 30 seconds of the entire procedure. In veterinary school, we perform one dog neuter, one cat spay, and one dog spay over the course of our third year. At the shelter, I performed 30 surgeries in 2 weeks. I made every mistake a novice surgeon could make: I accidentally cut a blood vessel that I wasn't supposed to, I dropped a pedicle (ovarian blood vessels that could potentially cause a lot of bleeding), I made incisions too long, I sutured things incorrectly, and many other mistakes. Each mistake helped me grow and by the end of the second week, I felt like a more competent and confident surgeon. I can't wait to get back into the operating room (in 2 months...) For now, I'm hoping to partake in "What I wish I could do," and I'll leave you all with a kitten mountain from the shelter! Adopt don't shop!
8 Comments
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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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