As promised, this morning we had a traditional Indian breakfast. This included dosa(a sort of rice pancake/crepe with egg) with dohl (the split pea soup thing) and chutney (a similar soup/grits thing made with lentils). It was all very good.
We left to get to the vet school by 8 when the clinic opened. Half of us were on Medicine Rotation and half were on surgery (there are 8 of us). Today I was on surgery! The clinic was empty when we got there but as soon as the clock hit 8 and doctors arrived, clients flooded in.
I'll leave most of the medical details out, but feel free to ask questions if you're curious. We are instructed to follow our cases from beginning to end so thats what I tried to do. The doctors all speak English, but will talk in Tamil to the locals, so I often had to ask what was going on. There is also a group of Bangladeshi students on rotation here who are in their final year. They were a good source to ask questions to also. This morning I stayed in the minor surgery ward. Some got to go help at the major surgery ward, but I was having fun shadowing where I was at.
I got to see a lot of neat things and how they were treated in a fast manner. The first dog that I followed was a black lab with an ear hematoma from a bite wound. We drained the ear and bandaged it so it would drain downwards. Another dog came in with an ongoing medical record of diarrhea for a month. Antibiotics were tried with no change, and a contrast radiograph was preformed. The radiograph showed delayed gastric emptying ( In my photos you can see the stomach still filled with barium(contrast) at 3hrs and about half full at 24hrs). This probably means there is some obstruction, whether it be a foreign body or a mass. He was scheduled for an exploratory laparotomy early next week. My favorite from today was a dog with a large scrotal wound. The wound was old and had maggots throughout. The wound was cleaned with saline and the maggots cleaned out and then an antiseptic ointment was applied. They then put on a scrotal bandage. The worst thing was since the dog had the wound, it had been licking it and had since developed a maggot nest/colony? in the roof of its mouth. The dog would have to be put under sedation to address and was scheduled to come back at a later date.
We went back to the guest house a little after 12 for lunch. We had some sort of fried potatoes (very much like french fries), rice, and these crisps that were similar in taste/texture to bugle chips. We also had butter milk with ginger that acts a probiotic. I think this was our worst meal so far. I don't really like milk and the meal itself had way too many carbs and really nothing else.
The afternoon class today was on parasitology. I think its funny how much we joke in school about how we "didn't learn anything from that class", but so much of it came back as soon as we sat down to look at things under the microscope. We learned about a lot of Indian parasites that are common. Some of which have been eradicated from the US, others of which are also very common in our country. It was a neat review. They were good at making it very hands on and it is so much nicer to learn when you aren't worried about that other test tomorrow. They also have a huge library of parasite samples that covered the walls of the room.
The neatest thing we learned there was their forensic entomologist field. Blowflies are attracted to dead bodies minutes after an animal's death. Entomologists can then look at the life stage of the fly on an animal or person after they are discovered and estimate their time of death. This is useful in human murder scenes and to track poachers who will kill tigers for their pelts and elephants for their tusks.
When we made it back to the hostel, I think we were all exhausted. Heidi and I went to the store for a few minutes. I got a pack of activated charcoal toothbrushes because I thought they were cool. I was pretty excited to brush my teeth tonight.
We keep applying as much Deet as we can. Some people in our group still have lots of bug bites. Some of the bites will turn into big welts. We were told it is because the mosquitoes here have different antigens and can cause a worse reaction to those not used to it. I am very fortunate that both here and in the US, bugs just don't like me. I don't think I have a bug bite yet.
Dinner was roti(another tortilla like bread made with flour and flat), dohl, beef with sauce, and ripe plantains. I was surprised we had beef, but like I said yesterday, only 80% of people here are Hindu, so beef is available.
After dinner there was a little wind down time but I think most people were in bed by 9:30 or so.
-7/7/15
Why do they want to artificially inseminate the listed breeds of dogs? Do you see many pitbulls there?
ReplyDeleteAnd -- what time does your "workday" end?