World Spay Day for Worldwide Veterinary Service

World Spay Day is held on the last Tuesday in February every year and this year I decided to hold a fundraiser to mark the occasion.

Last semester I became the first international WVS Student Rep and thought the day would be ideal for fundraising and raising awareness of the work the Worldwide Veterinary Service do and about their Surgical Training Courses for Vet Students and Graduates.

Thank you so much to everyone who donated and baked for the event...


...they all looked amazing!

We ended up raising €220 for WVS which is amazing and I'm sure will go a long way to supporting the work they do all over the world.

Equine Endoscopy - Lower Respiratory Tract

This semester we started Diseases of Horses which we will continue next year, ending in a State Exam.

This morning we had a lecture on Lower Respiratory Tract diseases then went into the stables to auscultate the cardiovascular systems of various horses, both school and patients, to listen for arrthymias and other pathologies.

We then went into surgery to perform an endoscopy on the lower respiratory tract.
We sedated the horse with xylazine, applied local anaesthetic get to numb the nose and reduce irritation for the horse and passed a flexible fibreoptic endoscope up her nasal passage. It takes three people to do the procedure; one to hold the hose, another to hold the scope at the nostril and another to control the endoscope.
 
We were able to view the nasal passages and larynx down the trachea to the carina (which is the bifurcation into the bronchi). The carina should be sharp but in this case it was blunt or the angle was thickened due to mucosal oedema and inflammation which indicated a chronic lower airway disease. We entered the bronchi but it induced heavy coughing which made it difficult to visualise.
Afterwards we examined the guttural pouches to look for mycosis or mucopurulent discharge, which in this patient were clear - if they weren't we can flush them and do culture and sensitivity testing.

In the guttural pouches we were able to visualise the cranial nerves VII to XII, salivary glands and carotid arteries which it quite scary considering a mistake with the scope could cause severe bleeding or facial paralysis!