Journey Through Vet Med

Okay. So. You know how some people want to finish exterminating all large predatory mammals so they have less competition for deer and so they don't occasionally lose livestock? And you know how native deer species in North America have been hit increasingly hard with Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in the past couple of decades due to overpopulation thanks to the eradication of large predatory mammals that normally keep them in check?

We already have evidence that reintroducing predatory mammals to their native ranges not only knocks deer populations back to a healthier level, and now we've discovered that apparently the digestive systems of cougars and bobcats are lethal to CWD prions. Prions are among the most difficult pathogens* to eliminate; you have to heat them up to about 1,800 degrees F in order to thoroughly destroy them. And prion diseases like CWD are almost universally fatal.

So I would like to add some personal experiences that could make for comedy gold on a show like this:

Excited pig monch to butt/knee cap/boots (see this post)

Surgery/necropsy where something full of liquid that is not blood erupts all over the doc/tech/student (like a giant cyst or abscess)

Bird escaping a kennel and techs having to wander around a dark room with nets trying to catch it OR bird escapes kennel, lands on a tech’s foot and attacks shoe while tech has to carefully scoot across room to get a net to catch the amgry birb

Farm call where a group of amgry geese/swans/turkeys are between vet and patient

Yearling colt doesn’t want vaccines so badly that he bolts from the restrainer by managing to tear the ring the lead rope attaches to off his halter

Absurd hamster death

Vet goes home to visit family farm for holidays and ends up providing impromptu wound care to family horse that did something stupid to get through the night

Sassy bunny steals something out of your hands, runs under something, and growls at you while you’re trying to get it

Being trapped in a room with a client for half an hour trying to get a yes or no on CPR/DNR on a patient (could be side plot of a whole episode)

Tech/student not scrubbed into a surgery freezing in the OR and cuddling with a freshly autoclaved surgical pack for warmth

Rat just hanging out on someone’s shoulder for a whole episode while they go about their duties

Fractious cat fights the injectable sedation and climbs into the ceiling tiles. It takes three days of setting live traps to get him back.

So I would like to add some personal experiences that could make for comedy gold on a show like this:

Excited pig monch to butt/knee cap/boots (see this post)

Surgery/necropsy where something full of liquid that is not blood erupts all over the doc/tech/student (like a giant cyst or abscess)

Bird escaping a kennel and techs having to wander around a dark room with nets trying to catch it OR bird escapes kennel, lands on a tech’s foot and attacks shoe while tech has to carefully scoot across room to get a net to catch the amgry birb

Farm call where a group of amgry geese/swans/turkeys are between vet and patient

Yearling colt doesn’t want vaccines so badly that he bolts from the restrainer by managing to tear the ring the lead rope attaches to off his halter

Absurd hamster death

Vet goes home to visit family farm for holidays and ends up providing impromptu wound care to family horse that did something stupid to get through the night

Sassy bunny steals something out of your hands, runs under something, and growls at you while you’re trying to get it

Being trapped in a room with a client for half an hour trying to get a yes or no on CPR/DNR on a patient (could be side plot of a whole episode)

Tech/student not scrubbed into a surgery freezing in the OR and cuddling with a freshly autoclaved surgical pack for warmth

Rat just hanging out on someone’s shoulder for a whole episode while they go about their duties

Almost drowning self and patient in mud attempting to net a hog

A sedating dart misfire out of the gun directly up into the air and having everybody stand stock still waiting to see where it would fall back down

Having an animal who is “mostly” sedated but has to move quickly, so being told “we’ll throw it on the back of the golf cart, you sit on her and we’ll drive fast”

Watching a supervisor literally up to the elbow manually cleaning out a rhino rectum for an enema, wearing neon orange crocs and saying that they’re better than closed toed shoes because “you can hose ‘em off after”

Techs not communicating they had started intubating so everyone thought the lion was rousing rather than coughing and everyone trying to panic bolt out of the stall

Being told “Be careful if you go into the hospital, I wasn’t paying attention while making diets, so the rehab crow stole and is now flying around with a knife in his mouth”

"No problem, I'll get him back in his kennel."

[truly absurd amount of crash noises]

"... he has decided NOT to go back to his kennel and I think I'm going to give him a chance to calm down and re-think his decision. :)"

"Hey, does this rash look like ringworm to you?"

[spoiler alert: it's always ringworm]

Human ingenuity displayed via non-conventional cat carriers (kindest way I can say 'someone tried to bring their cat in a fucking plastic bin)

multiple instances of, "oh, don't worry about the blood. It's all mine. :)"

So I would like to add some personal experiences that could make for comedy gold on a show like this:

Excited pig monch to butt/knee cap/boots (see this post)

Surgery/necropsy where something full of liquid that is not blood erupts all over the doc/tech/student (like a giant cyst or abscess)

Bird escaping a kennel and techs having to wander around a dark room with nets trying to catch it OR bird escapes kennel, lands on a tech’s foot and attacks shoe while tech has to carefully scoot across room to get a net to catch the amgry birb

Farm call where a group of amgry geese/swans/turkeys are between vet and patient

Yearling colt doesn’t want vaccines so badly that he bolts from the restrainer by managing to tear the ring the lead rope attaches to off his halter

Absurd hamster death

Vet goes home to visit family farm for holidays and ends up providing impromptu wound care to family horse that did something stupid to get through the night

Sassy bunny steals something out of your hands, runs under something, and growls at you while you’re trying to get it

Being trapped in a room with a client for half an hour trying to get a yes or no on CPR/DNR on a patient (could be side plot of a whole episode)

Tech/student not scrubbed into a surgery freezing in the OR and cuddling with a freshly autoclaved surgical pack for warmth

Rat just hanging out on someone’s shoulder for a whole episode while they go about their duties

Almost drowning self and patient in mud attempting to net a hog

A sedating dart misfire out of the gun directly up into the air and having everybody stand stock still waiting to see where it would fall back down

Having an animal who is “mostly” sedated but has to move quickly, so being told “we’ll throw it on the back of the golf cart, you sit on her and we’ll drive fast”

Watching a supervisor literally up to the elbow manually cleaning out a rhino rectum for an enema, wearing neon orange crocs and saying that they’re better than closed toed shoes because “you can hose ‘em off after”

Techs not communicating they had started intubating so everyone thought the lion was rousing rather than coughing and everyone trying to panic bolt out of the stall

Being told “Be careful if you go into the hospital, I wasn’t paying attention while making diets, so the rehab crow stole and is now flying around with a knife in his mouth”

We know vaccines painful, and by comparing horses at rest with horses getting vaccinated, we've been able to determine how they express pain visually. By looking at horses with disorders like colic, broken bones, wounds, and so on, we can determine their facial expressions during more severe pain.

At zookeeper school we were drilled through the pain faces of the most common lab animals and livestock. Nowadays I believe this has become a routine lesson in all animal related fields, but the general public still doesn't know that this is a thing that exists.

Here are all the pain face/grimace scales I've been able to find. Please study them if you interact with any of these animals on a regular basis: