COVID-19 Update

It feels like the world is going mad at the minute with the COVID-19 situation and lockdown. My Dad became symptomatic after my last weekend On Call, he had a phone triage then had to visit the isolation facility who said they were 99% sure he had Corona (but wouldn’t test him unless admitted and critical); so I had to isolate from work for 14 days.

In typical timing our WiFi went down at home (luckily Virgin sent a new router and it was fixed in 3 days) so it started off pretty boring but after that it became the norm.

Linnaeus made a Working From Home group on Teams and put on almost daily interactive webinars for us which was great. A few of us from work logged on each day and learnt lots - and have lots of suggestions we can implement at work.

I started to get cabin fever (much like the rest of the world) so made sure I had a routine of getting up at a sensible time and taking Céline for a long walk every afternoon.

I caught up with so many friends that I message all the time but never get the chance to call and actually speak to, which was nice. Also did lots of video calls and Zoom chats to keep on contact with the real world!

I returned to work on Monday and it’s been a weird week. We’re only seeing emergencies and other consults are being done via telephone and video which has taken some getting used to.

I had a dog fight in on Tuesday which required a stitch up and yesterday I diagnosed my first dog with Horner’s Syndrome.

Linnaeus GDP; Medical Musings

This week we headed to Wakefield, visiting Paragon Referrals with the Linnaeus Graduate Development Programme.

We were doing Medical Musings which meant seizures, dystocia, dyspnea, pruritis and some endocrinology.
Each lecture was given by the specialists and they were all really good and not just focused on gold-standard referral level which some specialists tend to get carried away with at conferences and things.

The hospital opened two years ago (this week) and the facilities are amazing. Reception is massive with their own separate dog and cat waiting areas...

...and a branded coffee machine!

I actually learnt and retained loads from the lectures and have been using things now I'm back at work this week!

Gratitude

I did a home visit euthanasia earlier in the week, the owner rang to ask where I was working this afternoon and came to our branch practice with a gift and cake.

Euthanasia consults are often the ones that we dread, mainly due to time management in my case, but when Reception are able to book home visits or book them in at the end of the day they can be the most rewarding; it’s the clients lasting impression of us as a practice and likely decides if they will use us for their next pet.

When I used to see practice as a student I got used to injecting off the needle to induce anaesthesia and euthanasia’s but now I prefer to take the animal out the back and place an IV catheter as it makes it much smoother for the owners as we have patent IV access and we don’t often need a nurse restraining the animal. We can then give them a few minutes with their pet before giving the injection and afterwards.

I rarely get sad because while it’s sad for the owner, it’s usually in the animals best interest and we are doing it to stop their suffering; if we took each one home to dwell on we’d never sleep.

This week I euthanised two animals I’ve been seeing for a few months and one dog, who I diagnosed with neoplasia on one of my weekends, was really sad and I nearly shed a tear for him with the owners 💙