Thanks to my mom for reminding me to update! Been so busy during my time here in Seattle, and haven't gotten around to it. Today, I gave myself a birthday present and went whale watching! Saw lots of harbor seals, a couple Steller's sea lions, and a couple bald eagles, but unfortunately no whales. Luckily, the company I booked it with has a guarantee and I can go on another cruise for free until I do see whales. Wish me luck on Saturday!
But anyway, back to my internship! The past two weeks have been great. I've really been honing the skills I've been learning, and successfully intubated several birds. I even got to do an anesthesia session on my own and succeeded! It was a young male mallard duck that came in with a broken leg. Jean was sick that day, so with the observation of Dr. Huckabee, I did everything I needed to do on my own to get radiographs and monitor under anesthesia while the exam an'd assessment was done. The duck was found to have an old fracture on the leg, but we decided to see how he would fare with some time to swim in the pool and perhaps heal on his own.
We did a number of "shoes" for patients these past couple weeks. Included in the shoe fittings were an American crow, a violet-green swallow, and a dark eyed junco. Each of these young birds had problems using their toes or feet, and a shoe was fastened to hold the toes in a normal position for a couple days to "reset" their position. The shoes were made from a variety of materials, including old x-ray film or stiff paper for a sole, and tegaderm, steri-strips, and vetrap to hold the shoe on. The crow and the swallow did remarkably and no longer are wearing shoes. The junco was not doing so well on an unrelated nest-mate illness.
I've also been practicing reading blood slides. Avian blood is much different than mammal blood, and it's interesting to look at. The patients I did the smears on suffered from anemia or had huge loads of blood parasites. Jean and Dr. Huckabee have been great in helping me identify the different white blood-cells and to perform estimates and differentials. The blood parasites of course have been the most interesting to me. The ones we've identified them in and treated for have had improving smears with less parasites and a good red blood cell regenerative response, meaning they're producing more red blood cells to battle the anemia. However, I've been told that some birds, like great horned owls almost always have blood parasites and they resolve themselves with no treatment. Cool how nature can take care of itself sometimes, eh?
One of the coolest things we did this week was take radiographs of three river otters that presented a few months ago with nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidism, or metabolic bone disease. These otters, since I've been here, have had to deal with some other tough obstacles, including serious hyperthermia (heat stroke) during a record-setting hot day during the first week, and a sudden bout of corneal ulcers and conjunctivitis. This was to be their last set of x-rays to see how well their bones had been healing after treating for the MBD, which was basically a daily round of Tums, which added calcium to their diet. Luckily for all three, the radiographs turned out magnificently, and the otters are on the home stretch and can now enjoy their new enclosure with a nice deep pool with a current to swim in. That is, once they get over their fear of water!
The amount of time the vet team puts into small, tiny birds amazes me. So many songbirds come in with enormous soft tissue wounds, tears, and punctures from domestic cat attacks, and the vet team doesn't skip a beat to put the poor bird under anesthesia to spend the better part of half an hour suturing a tear the size of a fingernail. I've seen tiny splints for bird legs not wider than a toothpick and no longer than an inch or two. Splints made from paper clips, tape, wooden sticks, soldered metal, custom fit hinged braces, webbing cut and molded into the shape of duck feet. The dedication, ingenuity, and time spent are inspiring.
I go into this last week with more confidence and a thirst to learn the most that I can before I have to go back. I look forward to updating you all afterwards!
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Saturday, July 5, 2014
PAWS Internship, Week 1
Last year I began the veterinary technician program at a local community college. I felt my skills in wildlife rehabilitation were inadequate and I wanted to provide better medical care, so I became the luckiest person in the world to have a guardian angel to help me financially through the vet tech program for the next two years, as well as making a great friend to talk to. In January of this year, I applied and was accepted for an externship at the PAWS Wildlife Center in Lynnwood, WA. I applied for a full four week vet tech externship. I started this week and I couldn't have asked for a better experience so far.
PAWS takes in over 3000 wild animals each year and has been around since the 80's. They have an expansive wildlife hospital, a full time and part time vet on staff, two vet techs, several rehabbers, and a huge support staff. They take everything from songbirds to opossums to bears, eagles, and harbor seals. Being in the great northwest, there is a huge variety of species big and small. And PAWS is equipped to handle each of these species with really amazing enclosures. The ducks and other water birds have large pools with floating platforms and enough room to dive and swim, the otters have in ground pools to swim in, the flight cages can be opened or closed to adjacent cages to change the size the birds are allowed, the raccoons are limited to their own buildings, and the baby bird nursery is fool-proof with signs everywhere on how to feed, feeding formulas labeled and indicated on feeding charts and great training program for volunteers specifically for that area in place. Everything is cleaned daily and the volunteer base is large and dedicated.
My part is on the "vet team" of PAWS, which is nothing short of amazing. Dr. John Huckabee, the full time vet at PAWS, is a wealth of knowledge and never disappoints in your quest to learn more. He asks questions often to get your brain going. Dr. John is also teaching a vet student intern, so I take the opportunity to listen in on their chats to get a little extra education. My supervisor is Jean, who has been a vet tech at PAWS for 8 years and really knows her stuff and is always teaching and giving the opportunity to learn. I hope someday I can be as good as her at anesthesia monitoring and jumping into action.
The vet team is separate from the rehabbers. Rehabbers do intakes on new patients and monitor animals as well as create diets, supervise volunteers, and are more involved in the caging, general care, monitoring, enrichment, etc. I hope someday to see a little bit more of what they do. The vet team is more focused on animals that need critical care or a vet consult. For instance, a bird that can't stand that needs radiographs, bloodwork needing done on a sick animal, a recheck on an animal that received previous vet care such as a splint or a wrap or wound management. Decisions are also made by the vet team on whether to continue supportive care on an animal of concern or whether to humanely euthanize.
Each day starts off with a rounds meeting in the vet office with the vet team and rehabbers on staff. A print out of all animals in vet care is given to each person and rounds are done, going through each animal, the animal's presenting problem, and the plan. A second sheet is created by the vet tech outlining which animals will be checked on that day, as well as what animals will be NPO'ed (that is, not fed) so that they can be anesthetized for a procedure. All animals getting radiographs are anesthetized and, if possible, intubated. Wings are taped down on the plate with masking tape while monitoring the animal for breathing patterns, heart rate, and plane of anesthesia. V/D and Lateral views are taken for each patient, with more requested as needed.
Some patients I've come across so far are river otters, lots of northern flickers, American robins, dark-eyed juncos, mallards, a harbor seal, lots of American crows, a red-tailed hawk, peregrine falcon, hummingbirds, swallows, a gull, and many more to come. We've done wound flushing and management, splints, wraps, PCV/TS, medications, fracture assessments, and emergency medicine (heat stroke). I've gotten great practice in bird venipuncture, especially in jugular, ulnar, and tarsal veins. Now just to hold that syringe a little more steady haha.
I'm only a week into this internship and already I am sad I only have three weeks left. This place is great, and I couldn't have asked for anything more. Can't wait to see what's to follow for the weeks to come!
PAWS takes in over 3000 wild animals each year and has been around since the 80's. They have an expansive wildlife hospital, a full time and part time vet on staff, two vet techs, several rehabbers, and a huge support staff. They take everything from songbirds to opossums to bears, eagles, and harbor seals. Being in the great northwest, there is a huge variety of species big and small. And PAWS is equipped to handle each of these species with really amazing enclosures. The ducks and other water birds have large pools with floating platforms and enough room to dive and swim, the otters have in ground pools to swim in, the flight cages can be opened or closed to adjacent cages to change the size the birds are allowed, the raccoons are limited to their own buildings, and the baby bird nursery is fool-proof with signs everywhere on how to feed, feeding formulas labeled and indicated on feeding charts and great training program for volunteers specifically for that area in place. Everything is cleaned daily and the volunteer base is large and dedicated.
My part is on the "vet team" of PAWS, which is nothing short of amazing. Dr. John Huckabee, the full time vet at PAWS, is a wealth of knowledge and never disappoints in your quest to learn more. He asks questions often to get your brain going. Dr. John is also teaching a vet student intern, so I take the opportunity to listen in on their chats to get a little extra education. My supervisor is Jean, who has been a vet tech at PAWS for 8 years and really knows her stuff and is always teaching and giving the opportunity to learn. I hope someday I can be as good as her at anesthesia monitoring and jumping into action.
The vet team is separate from the rehabbers. Rehabbers do intakes on new patients and monitor animals as well as create diets, supervise volunteers, and are more involved in the caging, general care, monitoring, enrichment, etc. I hope someday to see a little bit more of what they do. The vet team is more focused on animals that need critical care or a vet consult. For instance, a bird that can't stand that needs radiographs, bloodwork needing done on a sick animal, a recheck on an animal that received previous vet care such as a splint or a wrap or wound management. Decisions are also made by the vet team on whether to continue supportive care on an animal of concern or whether to humanely euthanize.
Each day starts off with a rounds meeting in the vet office with the vet team and rehabbers on staff. A print out of all animals in vet care is given to each person and rounds are done, going through each animal, the animal's presenting problem, and the plan. A second sheet is created by the vet tech outlining which animals will be checked on that day, as well as what animals will be NPO'ed (that is, not fed) so that they can be anesthetized for a procedure. All animals getting radiographs are anesthetized and, if possible, intubated. Wings are taped down on the plate with masking tape while monitoring the animal for breathing patterns, heart rate, and plane of anesthesia. V/D and Lateral views are taken for each patient, with more requested as needed.
Some patients I've come across so far are river otters, lots of northern flickers, American robins, dark-eyed juncos, mallards, a harbor seal, lots of American crows, a red-tailed hawk, peregrine falcon, hummingbirds, swallows, a gull, and many more to come. We've done wound flushing and management, splints, wraps, PCV/TS, medications, fracture assessments, and emergency medicine (heat stroke). I've gotten great practice in bird venipuncture, especially in jugular, ulnar, and tarsal veins. Now just to hold that syringe a little more steady haha.
I'm only a week into this internship and already I am sad I only have three weeks left. This place is great, and I couldn't have asked for anything more. Can't wait to see what's to follow for the weeks to come!
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