October Goals

So... At the beginning of October all of us 'questers' set five goals that had to do with our internship.

1. Learn how to express the anal glands on a dog
ACCOMPLISHED. Indeed, my very own dog needed her glands expressed so my mother brought her. Kathy drew me a picture of a simple dog's butt anatomy and gave me lube and gloves. She put her finger into my dogs butt and told me to feel where her thumb was. I felt a bunch of tension and she told me to stick my finger in and do what she did. I did, but I couldn't seem to actually squeeze the crap out. I let her do the work and nasty stuff came out. She told me that my dog's left gland didn't seem to express when she was going to the potty and that her right gland was fine so if I needed to, I just needed to empty the left. I'm sure I'll try eventually, but the stench was terrible!

2. Learn the differences of a cat and dog exam
ACCOMPLISHED. I've been to a few cat exams and a lot of dog exams. They don't stick out as much to me as the problem situations, but I'm almost 90% sure there is no difference. Heart rate, stomach palpitations, teeth check, range of motion, eyes, ears, temperature.  I think my next big goal would be to remember the bpm difference between dogs and cats. I think dog's can range from 90-140 but I'll need to double check.

3. Figure out how to learn more about this field outside of the internship
FORGOTTEN. I totally forgot about this. I go into my internship and focus on that and when I leave I'm exhausted. I just absorb everything that happens and I tell it to a whole bunch of people and sleep it off. I will most definitely continue to work on this mainly because I'm going to UC Davis this weekend and my friend will be able to show me the facilities they have and talk to people who are in the field.

4. Talk to Dr. Codner to see if I can look at skin diseases under the 'scope
ACCOMPLISHED. I didn't need to ask Dr. Codner because Dr. Dowd showed me some cool stuff. I saw eggs of a worm that a dog pooped out and I looked at a malignant tumor sample. The eggs with worms looked like hard boiled eggs and the malignant tumor looked like a whole bunch of scrunched together circles.

5. Learn all the Friday vet tech names
ACCOMPLISHED. The ones who are very open to me: Receptionist- Tammy. Vet techs- Kristin, Stacy, and Kathy. I know one other girl but for some reason her name is slipping my mind. It will come back to me!