Equine Medicine & Surgery

Feb 22, 2011

Vocab:
Hock- The bone that is where the ankle of a horse is , below the tibia.

Today was a pretty busy day in the equine rotation. I assisted a fourth year vet student in getting x-rays on the horse's hoof, this procedure had to be done slowly in order to not startle the horse. The goal was to get the hoof elevated by having the horse's right front leg on a board. The difficult task was getting the horse to stay while the x-ray machine came closer to him, after a couple of tries we managed to get him still enough to take good x-rays.

Once we got that I went to where they were performing surgery on a mare's throat. while I was in charge of supplying oxygen, the veterinarians were trying to get a hold of the displaced epiglottis (D). While the veterinarians stuck their arm inside the horse's mouth it would make a choking sound which did make me feel frightened (F). Unfortunately after an hour of trying they were unable to get a good grip, so they decided to try tomorrow with the horse standing. The most difficult part of equine surgery is getting the horses to stand on their own. This horse got up to quickly which is why they had to tie a rope on its tail and on the other side of the padded room we all pulled while one of the veterinarians was trying to hold her from falling on the sides and trying to put an oxygen tube in the opening of the trachea because she was struggling to breathe. Once the medication begun to work I was able to climb the door and watch how the veterinarian put the tracheal tube in her (D). Today I learned that to be a veterinarian that works with equine requires a lot of muscle, patience, and courage (A).