Today was the last day of surgery lab. The students did their presentations and at one point Dr. Young sent me up to the office to get the evaluation forms he left up there. After their presentations, we had them fill out the evaluation forms as well as their skills assessment forms. Then after lab, Maura and I went through all the records and checked for mistakes and to check to see if the correct amount of physical exams were done.

We decided we were going to do the two other cats today so Maura and I decided to do the blood work and start getting ready while the students were giving their presentations. At first, we got Lynx and Venus out and got blood from both of them. Then we realized that Maura and fasted the wrong male cat, and we really needed Galaxy. So we put Lynx back and I took Galaxy’s food and water away. Dr. Young decided that since it would be awhile before the surgery, and since he wouldn’t be under anesthesia for that long that it would be okay if we still did him today.
Then we helped with the rest of the presentations which went great.
Then there was some confusion between myself, Maura, Dr. Young and Kim. Basically, we thought that since we were not doing Galaxy until later since he had eaten this morning, that we were just doing both after the second lab instead of the castration between the labs like we had originally planned. So we decided that Dr. Young should look at the few animals on the medical board while we had some time. Come to find out, Dr. Young wanted us to switch the surgeries, and do the spay between classes and the castration after class. But he looked at the animals on the medical board anyway, and decided we should do Galaxy’s castration before the second lab got there. Maura and I finished getting him ready for surgery and then we used the induction chamber to knock him down. Once he was sedate enough, we took him out of the box and placed a mask on him and got ready to intubate. I held him while Maura intubated. Then Dr. Young had me open glove and help him with the castration. After he was done, Kim and I stayed with him until he woke up.

The second lab came in half way through this, since it took Galaxy a long time to go down. They just watched while we finished. Next they did their presentations and Maura and I set up for Venus’s spay. Then when the students were done, we did the spay. I gave the premedication of butorphanol, acepromizine, and glycopyrrolate. Then when she was sedate, I placed a 22gauge catheter in her left cephalic vein. Maura gave her induction drugs of ketamine and diazepam. Then I intubated her after placing lidocaine on the laryngeal folds. At first, I was in her stomach, but then I went down to a smaller tube, a 3.0mm, and that went in much better. Once I inflated the cuff and she was under anesthesia, Kim shaved and scrubbed her while I opened the surgical pack and scalpel blade and suture material for Dr. Young. Then she was moved into surgery and I acted as one of the anesthetists taking down her vitals and Maura, Kim and I worked as a great team. We were done from start to finish in about an hour and then we stayed to recover her. Once she was extubated, I gave her a dose of buprenorphine IM. Then we had to clean up all the instruments and repack everything, as well as clean up the surgery suite and the lab room. Dr. Young had to go to class, so it took us a while to clean up. Dr. Young is coming to give the pain medication to both cats tonight and tomorrow morning.

Kim had me run over to the rat lab when lab started because there was some confusion about whether or not the rat lab was being taken care of. It was but I changed the rabbit’s food, water and pan liners anyway because they were pretty dirty. Then when I got back, the students were doing their presentations and we role played with them again. We had them fill out evaluation forms, and then we also had them fill in their names on the skills evaluation lists. After the students left, Dr. Young wanted to go over their final grades with us and then we decided when we were going to do the last two surgeries that did not get done yet. We waited until the end of the semester for these two cats incase there were students right on the edge of passing and could use another chance. However, there were no students that needed this. We are doing the surgeries tomorrow between labs and then after the second lab.

The students had to do presentations today for their lecture. They had to role play admitting a patient into the hospital and then discharging them. Each student had a different surgery. Kim, Maura and I pretended to be the clients. Then we had them fill out the evaluation forms for the lab and made comments on their role playing.

Today was the last day of surgeries! They did a dental on Draco and Comet since Comet did not get done when he was scheduled. Everything went well and they got out a bit early. We graded them and then left.

The first lab did dentals on Rana and Satellite. The only difference is that I had to draw blood from Rana, and put his catheter in. Then we graded them before the second lab came in.

The second lab did Taurus and Triton. They all did well again. Then we graded them and left.

Today was Phoenix and Pluto. They both went very well again. Before lab I finished putting in the oil in the new dental machine so we could use it today. Everything went beautifully and then we graded them and went home.

We performed dentals on Neptune and Ophelia today. This is the second week of Tuesday’s dentals. They did much better then last week and managed to get out of lab on time. Maura wasn’t here today because of car issues, so I had to watch my group a little better. We graded and then left.

Today we did dentals on Moonbeam and Nash. The dentals themselves went well, however the students did not do well at being anesthetists. We had to push them to get things done and really hand walk them through everything. At this point, they should be doing everything on their own, with minimal help from us. But they eventually got it done. After we graded, Maura and I stayed and started to put the new dental machine together. We followed the instructions and got almost all of it done except we needed to finish putting the oil in but we both had to go so we decided we’d finish it tomorrow.

Today was a make up lab for the Thursday afternoon lab when we had to cancel because the USDA came. They started their dentals and we used Krypton and Leo. My group had Leo. Everything was going great, until we tried to place the catheter. The clinical labs have been practicing blood draws and both of his front legs had been used a lot. One of the students tried to place the catheter twice, and could not get it, they would hit the vein, but the catheter would not feed through. Two tries is the limit, so then I attempted to place one, and again, the catheter would not feed. So then Maura tried, and the same thing happened. Now it was Dr. Young’s turn. He too could not get the catheter to feed in a cephalic vein, so we went to a saphenous and it went right in. The only thing that this changed was that it was a little harder to move him because we needed to be careful it would not come out. Then the students did their dental and it went very well.
We graded them, and then we saw that our new dental machine had arrived. Maura and I started to try to put it together, but we needed a wrench to take it out of the box, and we did not have one.