Ashwood Vets

Summer 2011 I spent a week shadowing the vets at Ashwood Veterinary Practice (LINK). The vets at Ashwood were really nice and I enjoyed spending time with the vet nurses also. I saw so many different things during the week and saw my favourite ever surgery during this week. This surgery had such an amazing back story and made me even more determined to become a vet so here’s hoping!

On the first day there was one cat spay and two doggy dentals booked in so it was a great start to the week. The head nurse gave me a tour of the practice and went through the fire safety etc. I then went down to the prep room where some other nurses were already preparing the cat for her spay, luckily she was a nice cat and was cooperating nicely! Once she was anaesthetised and shaved up I got to help clean and scrub the area ready for surgery and carry the cat through to surgery. The spay went straight forwards and was really interesting to watch. After the cat was stitched up and woken up she was taken back to the kennels to come round. The first dog was then brought out and anaesthetised, it was a little white Yorkshire terrier and he was having a tooth removed due to it being infected and there was a huge abscess that had been causing him pain. The tooth came out really easily as it was so infected and then the vet cleared out the abscess and packed it with some gauze and gave the dog an antibiotic jab and woke him up. The second dental was a scale and polish on a black lab bitch. Her teeth had some tartar on them and the vet removed it and polished the teeth to prevent further tooth decay or gum disease.

After the morning surgeries it was a bit quieter until about 2pm so I helped out the nurses with cleaning and I made some ‘cat packs’ that are given to people who have just got new cats and want information on insurance and care. When 2pm arrived we were full of consultations and I got to see all of them, many were just routine vaccines but I did get to ‘bum stop’ a dog that wasn’t being very cooperative so he needed holding down. One interesting case did come in though, a Dalmatian came in with red lumps and hives all over its legs and belly. It was found that he was allergic to the long grass and had been out in it on a walk the night before so was prescribed antihistamines and advised to stay away from long grass.

The second day I got to see some really exciting things, I saw a spay and a castration on two young rabbits, the vet was telling me how difficult it was to spay female rabbits as they are so delicate. This was the only surgery for that day and afterwards I helped the nurses clean the theatre and reception area. In the afternoon I saw some more consults that were mostly vaccinations. A dog also came in for a post op check with the nurse. I then went into the back room and packed the autoclave bags with swabs ready to be sterilised. Some blood tests needed to be run and the nurses showed me how that worked and how the centrifuge spun the blood out into its separate parts.

On the third day was when I saw the most inspirational case of all my work experience. The head vet Steve Mucklow had seen an owner who had come from another vets to the one I was at because their previous vet had dismissed the owner when he said he could feel a lump in the dogs abdomen. The owner was sure there was a lump and asked Steve to do some more tests so he did an ultra sound and a massive splenic tumour was uncovered. This day was the day of the removal of the spleen. The surgeon that was doing the operation was a vet that only comes in to do surgery and doesn’t do the usual general clinic work. He was really experienced and as he was doing the surgery he would explain to me the things he was doing and why. He explained that we cut down the linear alba central line of the muscle of the abdomen as it is a strong point and can heal well. In the afternoon during consults I experienced another difficulty in the profession, an old couple came in with their cat and the couple were both deaf and dumb. In order to explain things to the couple the vet had to write things down and make sure they understood everything as the cat was on medication and needed it to be given at certain times. This just shows you need people skills not just animal skills to be a vet. One person brought in some baby hedgehogs with the mother hedgehog that they had found whilst removing some hedgerow. The head nurse has special interest in taking care of wild animals and took the hedgehogs home to care for.

The next day was a lot quieter than the first few, there were barely any consults and the few that were were straight forward vaccinations. The only thing that happened was a hamster was brought in to be put down as it had severe respiratory problems and I saw that be gassed in a box then injected in the heart and put to sleep. I did get to sit in with a nurse who was talking to an owner about dental care with her 3 dogs and she was talking through the different products that were available. There was another talk about puppies to a new puppy owner too just suggesting how to train the puppy and what to feed it. I made some dental packs which were like the cat packs but had more about dental care and had some free samples of pet toothpaste in. The rest of the day I spent with the nurses talking about the career paths and if there were any tips they had.

My last day was… interesting. We started off with a straight forwards cat dental that was just a scale and polish. Then things got a bit more complicated, it was time for the dog dental on a big golden retriever. The problems started when trying to anaesthetise him, he was fighting the drugs and kept trying to get up, the vet increased the dose and eventually he settled. The vet then got the breathing tube into the airway and tied it in place but the dog started to be restless again and seemed to be breathing around the tube. After more drugs the dog finally settled and the vet put another bigger breathing tube in and finally he could scale and polish the teeth!  Things got a little smellier after that, a golden Labrador came in after suspected gravel consumption… he was X-rayed and you could see all the specks of gravel in his digestive tract. The vet decided an enema was the best idea…so with two tubes up the dog’s rectum he began to wash out the insides and it smelled horrible and made quite a mess. He did manage to get most of the stones out though. Later on in consults I saw a dog that had some sores on its face and the vet couldn’t work out the cause, they had been there for a few months and had got better with treatment but he was still unaware of the cause. Another person brought in a pigeon that had been hit by a car but it had to be put down and I took it to the freezer to be sent off to be incinerated. Later in the afternoon I was talking to one of the vets about the difficulties you find with getting some owners to follow your instructions, he told me one story of a woman who complained they had changed medicine as the tablets she now had for her dog floated when she tried to flush them… the tablet had just changed shape and she’d just admitted to flushing away tablets she’d paid for! He also said he didn’t like people bringing in things like the pigeon that had been hit by a car as there’s usually not a lot they can do and people should leave nature alone.

I got to see a lot in this week and really got to see the importance of the nurses as I spent a lot of time with them, I got to speak to the vets and ask them questions too and that was invaluable experience, if anyone out there is looking for a place to do work experience, Ashwood vets is a brilliant place! 

 Socks and sandals and a goat kid :D