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Category: Student blogs

  • Rodeo time!

    Rodeo time!

    With pre-exam stress in full swing for most of us, we welcomed a break in the form of the Glasgow Vet School Rodeo last weekend. The annual charity event took place for the 53rd time this year.

    Poster for the 53rd annual Glasgow Vet School Rodeo
    Poster for the 53rd Glasgow Vet School Rodeo

    Traditionally (from what I can gather), it used to be somewhat like a country show, with stock showing, sheep herding and the like. Now, it’s more of a family day out with many displays and stalls of different natures, though all loosely animal-related.

    Entertainment throughout the day included displays such as falconry, duck herding and dog sledding. There was have-a-go dog agility and dog showing for the public to enter their pets into. For the children, there were pony rides, bouncy castles, laser quest and a climbing wall. Of course, there was a marquee full of craft stalls and all sorts of different tombola and raffle stands supporting various animal related charities.

    The proceeds from the entry tickets and the main raffle went towards four key charities: The Riding for the Disabled Association, Canine Partners, The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Scottish SPCA) and The Vet Fund  (James Herriot Scholarship Fund). In addition to these, many other animal and breed-specific charities had their own stalls.

    It is a vet school tradition that first years “volunteer” on the day. My friend and I spent the morning helping out on the “small animal” stand – there were a selection of small furries including rabbits, hamsters, mice and guinea pigs available for the public (mainly children) to handle. Our role was to help get the animals out of their cages and make sure there were no escapees. Other than my small disagreement with a rat (it sank its teeth into my finger in response to being picked up), we enjoyed our time chatting to people and brushing up on our handling skills.

    In true Glasgow style, the day ended with a ceilidh – a great day and evening was had by all of us at the vet school!

  • My barking mad challenge

    You know you’re going somewhere remote when your first exchange with a local Norwegian at the airport is: “People don’t go to Alta, people get sent to Alta.”

    Alaskan Huskies in Norway. Credit: Pater McFly
    Alaskan Huskies in Norway. Credit: Pater McFly

    Joking aside, Alta is a fairly small community well into the Arctic Circle, and we were leaving civilisation behind altogether by venturing into the wilderness with seven sleds and 32 huskies. The cabins we stayed at varied in facilities – some had running water and electricity but, at some, we had to keep a fire going for warmth and drill into a frozen lake for drinking water. It really did feel like we’d left the real world far behind.

    On the first day, we were introduced to our dogs and shown how to harness them correctly to the sled. Before long, we were tearing across the snow, astounded at the dogs’ enthusiasm, strength and speed. They were as friendly as pet dogs and yet much hardier with a relentless attitude towards their work. They slept outside in the snow and pulled the sleds for hours on end without tiring. And each had an individual character.

    Whenever we hit an incline and they started to slow, we had to jump off and run with them or scoot to help them out. Leaving them to it was not an option; if we were slacking, the dogs would just stop and turn round to look at us. They don’t need the power of speech – it was easy to see what they were thinking!

    But it wasn’t just a case of jumping on the sled in the morning, traveling for five or six hours, and then collapsing. We looked after the dogs’ every need before we settled down each night. Having no TV or internet meant that our group of seven (including the expedition leader and trip doctor) really bonded over the course of the week.

    I think the second day was the most physically demanding. Not because there were many hills (that day was actually quite flat), but because muscles I didn’t even know I had were aching. Despite all the training, everyone seemed to be feeling the strain. I don’t think I could have trained more, but think this was simply down to the fact that it’s a completely different type of exercise to running or cycling or swimming. That day, I really did have to make myself get off and run when the dogs needed a bit of extra help. But I kept reminding myself why I was doing it and kept going.

    Lying in hospital with 12 broken ribs, I would never have thought that, two years on, I would be mushing my own team of huskies across Norway. I can’t thank the Warwickshire and Northamptonshire Air Ambulance (WNAA) enough – I genuinely believe that they saved my life the day that I fell from that horse. I think it’s important to keep raising awareness and funds for the charity so that they can continue to save lives.

    So that’s how I came to be stood on a sled in the North of Norway. It was tough at times but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and am grateful that I had so much support with raising money for the charity.

  • Luck of the draw

    During the Easter holidays, I had my first EMS placement. Although I’d hand-reared cade lambs before, I’d never actually been lambing. Someone in the year above at Glasgow had been to the farm that I and some of my friends had arranged to go to. While they said it would be a good placement, we still didn’t really know what to expect.

    The farmer didn’t just set us doing menial tasks such as feeding and watering.
    Luckily, the farmer didn’t just set us doing menial tasks such as feeding and watering.

    It turned out that it probably couldn’t have been better. We got a really friendly farmer who explained everything to us and seemed to strike the balance perfectly between teaching, supervision and leaving us to it when confident enough.

    He also didn’t just set us doing menial tasks such as feeding and watering. Of course, we did do some, but he was eager to get us involved in as much lambing as possible and more “vetty” tasks such as injecting sheep or lambs, tube-feeding colostrum and worming. It definitely seemed like he went out of his way to make sure we experienced all aspects of ewe and lamb care during lambing time.

    While talking to both the farmer and the other students that were there, we discussed horror stories of placements other people had been on. We’d heard of people sleeping in caravans, cooking for themselves (in said caravan) and being abandoned with very little instruction with a field of lambing sheep. Having warm beds to sleep in the farmhouse, home cooking and as much food as possible thrown at us, we felt very lucky, considering what we could have ended up with.

    Unless a placement has been recommended, it is very much luck that determines what sort of accommodation or people you’ll end up working with. We were so grateful to draw the long straw with lambing. It would have been very easy to end up with a placement on which we wouldn’t learn or do nearly as much.

  • Do something amazing – give (your pet’s) blood

    I had heard of the Pet Blood Bank before, but only when it was mentioned in one of our blood lectures did I start wondering. I don’t know how often veterinary professionals make use of the service in general practice, but I do think it’s fantastic that a resource like this is available to help save the lives of sick dogs.

    Blood Transfusion
    A Parson Jack Russell terrier receiving a blood transfusion for treatment of severe anaemia as a consequence of rat bait toxicity. Credit: Pet Blood Bank UK.

    Set up in 2007 after a change in legislation allowing collection, processing and storage of pet blood, it is a fairly new charity.

    This is a classic example of just how recent and non-routine a procedure is in veterinary compared to how commonplace it is in human medicine. It is understandable why blood transfusions are less often thought of in the veterinary world. While animal blood-typing is less well understood and more complicated than human blood-typing, we also have to take ethical decisions, considering the healthy donor dog cannot choose whether to surrender some of his/her blood.

    However, I think that the benefits of having a pet blood bank outweighs the ethical conundrum, as long as the donor is healthy and any risks are minimised. Blood transfusions can be life-saving, and we should embrace the opportunity to provide dogs with the same medical advancements as are available in human medicine.

    We should not only support the work of the Pet Blood Bank, but also promote it and try to increase awareness throughout not only the veterinary world but in the general public as well. By raising the profile of the charity, more donors will come forward and more funding can become available to extend the service in order to provide other pets, such as cats and horses, with an equally life-saving resource.

  • ‘Real’ doctors

    Doctor in white
    Image ©iStockphoto.com/Alfsky

    Everyone knows that there’s an ancient feud between vet and medical students. Glasgow is no exception – only the other day, I had a heated debate on the topic with another student (who, annoyingly,  wasn’t even a medic).

    While, for the most part, it’s just friendly banter, there is some truth in both arguments.

    A doctor will usually have one area of focus and will spend his whole career becoming more and more specialised in that particular field, whereas a vet will be the GP, surgeon, physio, neurologist and much more for several different species, not just one. As a first year student, it’s sometimes a little scary and overwhelming to think about the broad spectrum of knowledge we need to gain in just five years.

    When the medics graduate, they’ll become junior doctors and from then on will begin narrowing down their fields of interest until eventually finding themselves as “left toe specialists”, or something. In 4.5 years, we’ll be let loose into the world of veterinary and, at the end of day one, will have probably already spayed a cat, pregnancy tested a few cows and euthanised a dog, with a rabbit or bird thrown in somewhere too.

    Not only are the medics likely to be more specialised than us, they also “go further” than we do in terms of treatment. In my interview for Glasgow vet school two years ago, after expressing an interest in orthopaedics, I was asked the ethical question: “How far is too far?”

    The Bionic Vet
    The Bionic Vet

    I didn’t really have an answer but tried to reason my way through it, discussing things like kidney transplants in cats in America and The Bionic Vet, and came to the conclusion that every case must be treated individually, having weighed up the pros and cons of “heroic treatments” in each situation.

    Now I realise that these heroic treatments are fairly uncommon in the veterinary world. Kidney transplants, for example, which are routine in medicine, are non-existent in veterinary in the UK. Is this a consequence of lack of funding and resources or lack of experience and knowledge in the field? Probably a little of both.

    The GP vet will play the role of all these specialised fields to some extent (some being more qualified to do so than others). While we can specialise and work in referral practices, the average mixed or small animal vet will find themselves becoming a “Jack of all trades and master of none”.

    Does that make us more intelligent than the medics, or just more well-rounded? Is it better to have a broad spectrum of knowledge and practical skills or to be very skilled at a few specific procedures?

  • Three little pigs

    One little piggy’s in a farrowing crate, one little piggy gets his tail docked and one little piggy is left alone.

    Three Little Pigs
    Illustration by L. Leslie Brooke, from The Golden Goose Book, Frederick Warne & Co, Ltd (1905). Image taken from Project Gutenberg eText

    I know I’ve already mentioned pigs, but something came up again this week that seriously rattled me. Using an online programme, an example came up in which a sow had given birth to her litter in a pen, not a farrowing crate. One of the piglets was injured and later died because she’d laid on it. The conditions were described as “cramped” and it was insinuated that the death had occurred due to the lack of space.

    While the conditions were not the point of the example (it focused more on the attitude of the stockman), I couldn’t help but feel displeased at the way in which the information was portrayed.

    Coming from a pig farming background, I know from experience that it is better to put sows in farrowing crates for the sake of the piglets, saving them from being squashed. The farrowing crate would, in fact, give the sow less room than the pen used in the example.

    The principle facts in the programme were wrong, regardless of whether it would be considered “cruel” by some to confine sows in this way – the reason for the piglet’s injury was too much space, not too little.

    In another example used in the same programme, it was, again, insinuated that tail docking piglets is cruel.

    What I would consider cruel would be to let pigs die of spinal abscesses arising from excessive tail biting, which would be the result of not tail docking them. Would you argue that vaccination is cruel? No, because a small, short term burst of pain is better than contracting a disease that would later prove fatal. Same principle.

    Practices such as tail docking or the use of farrowing crates do not come about without reason. Farmers do not inflict mindless cruelty on their animals – it’s not in their interest to do so. These methods are used because they are the most efficient way of managing worse problems. This should be made more evident to vet students who have little experience of farming.

    So which little pig is the odd one out?

  • Pony Club values

    Sat in our equine lectures so far, I’ve found myself dozing off a little. Not because of the morning-after headache following one of Glasgow’s vet school socials, or from utter boredom, but because I already knew a lot of it.

    The Manual of Horsemanship (14th Edition)
    The Manual of Horsemanship (14th Edition)

    Yes, I’ve had my own horse and have been riding since I was 11, but I think the real culprit is The Pony Club. Years of Pony Club badges, efficiency tests and stable management sessions at camp had obviously made a lasting impression.

    It’s only now, at university, that I’m beginning to appreciate just how much has sunk in over the years. From simple things like the difference between hay and haylage, to the less fundamental like laminitis and strangles – The Pony Club has taught me so much. The best part is that it rarely felt like an effort because of the friends I made and because I always had so much fun at the same time.

    Not only did I pick up horsemanship knowledge, but also invaluable skills like being tested orally and having to think on your feet.

    There are no written examinations in The Pony Club. The efficiency tests – which higher up can be regarded the same levels as the British Horse Society stages – require a riding and stable management element. In both, you are asked to demonstrate or explain things. Without realising it, by the time I got to the B Test, I was able to talk confidently to an examiner about all aspects of horse owning, riding or the industry in general.

    Over the years, I’d also gotten roped into the team Stable Management competition, which took a similar format to the efficiency tests but required you to work as a team of three to carry out practical skills as well as discuss answers. Aside from teamwork, I’d picked up how to effectively bandage for different situations, comprehensive first aid and nutrition – all useful for a prospective vet.

    I think The Pony Club has been invaluable and is a fantastic way for children of all ages to learn about the beautiful animals they ride, whether they end up having a career involving them or not. While sat in the vet school library the other day, I noticed a very old copy of The Pony Club’s Manual of Horsemanship on the shelves. I couldn’t help but smile to myself.

  • The possibility of failure

    A week before the December exams, I found myself making the five-hour train journey south to not-so-sunny Leicestershire for the first time since I left for uni in September.

    Burnt out student
    © iStockphoto.com/Stockphoto4u

    This wasn’t because I couldn’t stand being away from the horses for a minute longer (though it was starting to get that way), but because I wanted to go back for the funeral of a family friend. These things happen, and I continued to revise for the exams while back at home.

    For most of us at vet school, everything we’d done beforehand was aimed at getting in. Studying, sports, work experience. Most of us were good at what we did, going above and beyond our past classmates. To get into vet school, we were pretty much top of the class. To us, anything lower than an A was catastrophic. We had to be the best to have the chance of even getting an interview.

    Now, with our first exams looming, for the first time, the possibility of failure had become a very real thing. The sheer amount of information we’ve been cramming into our heads since the start of term couldn’t possibly be remembered, could it? We’d heard the scare stories from the second years:

    “Nobody passes all of the December exams.”

    “You’re lucky if you get 40%.”

    Here, we were on the level playing field of a whole new ball game. I think we’d all tried to mentally prepare ourselves for the worst over the coming week.

    Was this just the start of the possibility of failure though? In practice, it is by no means always possible to cure the animal put in front of you. Whether that’s because it’s not possible to provide a diagnosis or treatment because we don’t know enough about the condition, because the disease process is too far along, or because of economical limitation, the fact remains the same. We will have to accept that we cannot do everything for every animal we are presented with in the coming years.

    However, just because we may not succeed, we have not necessarily failed.

  • A bundle of nerves

    “If a nerve is squashed, it’s not too serious, it goes back to normal. If the nerve is severed or torn, the cow will be lame for a long time – the prognosis is bad.”

    That made me sit up a little straighter than normal for a Monday morning lecture.

    Image © iStockphoto.com/Eraxion
    © iStockphoto.com/Eraxion

    During my riding accident, I squashed part of my sciatic nerve (it was “stuck” on something, my doctors told me). Of all the injuries I sustained, that was by far the most painful and most long-term. Within a couple of months, I regained most of the movement in my foot, but the pain didn’t stop then.

    Nerve pain is unlike other pain; it’s a stinging, hot pins-and-needles, burning, tingling, throbbing and above all persistent pain. There’s no escaping it… except for the appropriate nerve painkillers. It’s difficult to describe, and incomparable.

    Now, a year-and-a-half later, I’m still on the painkillers, which is not unusual – I’ve lost count of the number of times doctors have told me nerves take the longest to heal.

    So, how can we possibly hope to understand what an animal is going through? Or even, for that matter, whether they are in pain at all? Perhaps slight nerve damage doesn’t seem so serious because the cow can still move almost normally. But how are we to know that the cow is not experiencing that excruciating, burning pins-and-needles sensation?

    In farm practice, I suppose the general consensus would be that if the cow’s value decreases and it’s cheaper to euthanise it, then so be it. But what if it were a horse or dog with sciatic nerve damage? Would we go as far as to operate on the damaged nerve (as mine was) or are there nerve-painkillers currently available for animals?

    How do we know how long the animal is in pain or discomfort for? My foot doesn’t hurt anymore, but it’s still hypersensitive, so I don’t like people touching it, etc. I would assume nerve tissue in animals takes as long to heal as it does in us. Does that mean these injured animals are suffering, though perhaps on a slightly lower key basis than initially, for longer than we realise?

    We can’t possibly experience every type of pain or ailment that an animal might have, so we may not always understand why something hurts or indeed where that pain is coming from (although the pain is in my foot – the damage is at the knee). But all we can do is try to use the resources available to us to do the best for the animals under our care.

    As with any condition in veterinary medicine, it comes down to the fact animals can’t speak to us, and we must not forget that.

  • Common vs anatomical

    In anatomy, we have the ongoing debate about whether we need to use the anatomical names for bones or the “common” equivalent. Though we are examined only on the anatomical terms, how important is it to be aware of the others?

    Credit: Owain Davies
    Credit: Owain Davies

    “In the distal limb, we have the third metacarpal bone, proximal, middle and distal phalanges and the proximal and distal sesamoids.”

    Imagine saying that to a horsey client. You’d probably receive a blank look.

    Horsey translation: “Cannon bone, long pastern bone, short pastern bone, pedal bone, navicular bone and sesamoids.”

    Now the client more than likely has a rough idea of what you’re going on about.

    The importance of being able to relate the different terms is not only essential to the client-vet relationship, but also to your credibility. If someone were to ask about swelling around the cannon bone, and you only know it as the third metacarpal, things become somewhat awkward.

    Perhaps it comes down to experience. Those of us from horsey backgrounds take things like that for granted. But it’s not just names of bones. I’m sure during our clinical years, we will learn about equine exertional rhabdomyolysis. Again, a horse owner probably won’t have a clue what that is. Mention azoturia, tying up or Monday morning disease, and you’re now on the same page.

    Although anatomical names are “correct”, I feel that the importance of common names is paramount, and this should be emphasised more to us as students.