I had my 1st day at the Raptor Center today and it went well. I have a rotation mate from another school and he seems pleasant enough, though a bit hyperactive. The doctors, tech, and other staff have been really nice and are aware of my medical leave of absence and resulting inexperience. I should be done by 5 pretty much every night (though was done at like 3 today because of the snow and not so much going on), though I do have some weekend duties.
We started out with rounds on the patients, which was kind of overwhelming. Then the director/one of the vets went over some radiographs with us. Oh, man, the x-ray terminology was not coming to me. Gotta remember my doctor words! Plus, it didn’t help that I’m very rusty on my bird anatomy. I think I did OK, though. Then we kind of shadowed the treatment room as patients were being brought in for their morning rechecks. So many beautiful birds! I held the leg of a golden eagle that had a broken leg and wing and it was amazing. I’d worked with them before, when I used to volunteer at the Raptor Center before vet school, but never got the opportunity to handle any. So amazing!
Sadly, there was one little hawk (can’t remember the species and not sure if I should divulge the info even if I did remember since they have patient confidentiality stuff too) that was not healing and was, in fact, deteriorating, so they made the decision to euthanize. But they had us practice some clinical skills on it while it was anesthetized. They had us try blood draws on a wing vein. They were so tiny! My rotation mate started first. He couldn’t get it and ended up blowing the vein. This didn’t give me much hope for myself because it’s been nearly a year since I’ve drawn any blood and I am not good at small vessels. Plus he’s been doing his rotations and such so has been getting a lot of experience drawing blood lately. Much to my great surprise, though, I got it on my first try, got a decent amount of blood, and didn’t blow the vessel! This was the smallest vein I’ve ever accessed! I was so proud of myself! Then we were taught how to place an intraosseous catheter, which I had never done before, and rotation mate though I should do it since I seemed to be on a roll. Basically, you’re sticking a needle into the distal part of the ulna and you can give fluids and such through it. After one of the doctors, Dr. D, did a demo on one wing, he had me do it on the other. At first I could not get it in. It is so hard to get through bone! And I thought I was maybe in the wrong spot, but Dr. D confirmed that I was, so I just pushed harder and boom! It was in! And the way you confirm that it’s in is by moving it around a little and you hear the tip of the needle scraping the inside of the bone. Eewwww. Like nails on a chalkboard. But I did it!!! It feels SO GOOD to be doing hands-on doctory things. I may fuck everything up tomorrow, but at least I did pretty well today, especially being so rusty :)
I should study some stuff. I need to go over some radiographical anatomy (and have an assignment which I’m pretty sure is identical to an assignment I did for a bird class at some point but it was on paper and not digital so I don’t think I’ll be able to find it). And anatomy in general. On Wed rotation mate and I are supposed to do a necropsy and label some stuff on our bird. And I’m supposed to be doing a case summary project but I can’t quite figure out what all that entails so I guess I’ll have to ask my supervisor. All the things!
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