custer

 I wear a polo shirt to work.  So does anyone who works at Ralphs, Walmart, BestBuy, Petco, Kinkos, Starbucks or any other retail outlet around here.  When I worked for Homeland Security we had a polo shirt uniform.  The Coast Guard Aux has two, CAP has four (yes count them four different ones) even the sheriffs department wears them when they are using the unmarked cars.  Most LA City Services wear them.

While at my other job this morning (where I wear scrubs) I noticed we got a catalog from AVMA for custom imprinted workwear.  Was it scrubs?  Hell no, it was 30 pages of polo shirts with various AVMA logs on it.  Some were button up shirts in this case, but none of it was scrubs.

Excuse me "American Veterinary Medical Association" but what do you think we wear to work?  I suppose I could wear a polo shirt and a lab coat but I don't. and neither does anyone else.

At some point the world went business casual EVERY day of the week and not just Fridays.

Its always pretty good at the semi-monthly City of Angels Vets CE class. This one was on Urinary Incontinence in dogs, interesting for me as I have worked at a cat only practice for years and have almost forgotten what a dog looks like on the outside, let alone the inside.

Only one cat was ever mentioned anywhere in the class - I get the impression cats are like Feraris and dogs are 1962 chevy pickup trucks.

Urinary fistulas were a fascinating thing for me as I've never seen one How something like that develops in the first place is just amazing. But thats from someone who is still amazed that ANY cow is actually alive.

My doctor has lots of connections and friends.

My only actual "Fixed" schedule at my clinic is weekends, the other three days float around. Apparently next week I'm being loaned out to a mobile vet in Tarzana, since that doctor does one continuous 18 hour day (!!) and I'm regarded as one of the few people available that will actually hold up to that.

So instead of my normal Monday & Tuesday, I'll be pulling a solid 18 hour shift on Monday and get Tuesday to sleep in and recover from it. My TSA workdays were 10 hour days bracketed by an 80 mile commute, with the workday spent mostly on my feet without breaks, so I'm actually well adapted for this. Should be fun.

I certainly wouldn't mind this becoming a regular thing either - pull half a work week in a single day?

I could make this a regular full time job but one of the two days (two day work week!) would have to be Saturday and that conflicts with one of the days. Still, stuff could be shifted around. Time will tell.

This was the busiest day so far. Two MAJOR surgeries, One of which involved a 10 pound dog that had about a third of its abdomen as one huge tumor. Amazingly this dog survived the surgery and was even lively and active at the end of the day, though its gums were a stark white even after a blood transfusion.

Two dogs were brought in overheated, both pug / bulldogs. The first had a temperature of 107.5, but a rapid wetting down with cool water and a fan revived that one and he went home. The other has some temperature over 110 as thats as far as our thermometers can register. Needless to say that one didn't make it, and I'm glad to be a tech in the back rather than the personnel in front that had to deal with the screams, tears and accusations of the husband & wife blaming each other. For what, having the dog outside on a day when the temperature here hit 108?

Its obvious now why we wear scrubs that cost about $12 a set - mine are covered with blood (and various other) stains after this shift. I didn't get out of there until over an hour after everyones shift was over. Good thing I was an MCSE in a former life as I was also the only one there who could do the cornerstone data backup at the end of the day as well.

Its now 10:30 and still almost 90 here.

One of the front staff girls (really sharp pre-vet) brings a 9 week kitten to work with her that often is just running around. Never causes a problem.

We have a big pit bull and a big lab that are clinic dogs - used to provide blood for transfusions.

Yesterday the pit bull got loose in the clinic and went after the kitten. I did a football dive and grab and the pit bull bounced off my back. This endeared me to the kittens owner but convinced most of the rest of the hospital staff that I was nuts (Kitten Save!)

Well today for my pre-employment test the head DVM wanted to see me do an induction, intubation, cephalic vein catheter, cephalic blood draw from the other leg, saphenous vein blood draw, jugular vein blood draw, cystocentesis, and urinary catheter, and handle all of the anesthesia myself. All of it went off without a hitch except my first catheter got a flash and then stuck on something, but the second one went in fine. He also liked my taping job that now is the clinic standard.

Guess who got to be the test dummy for that?

martes is still out of town for Comicon. I have one week left on my Microbiology course and then one lone Thursday after that for my last test prep class. As of August 9 I'll be done with classroom stuff.

I'll have one more week of my AS480 intern class, which originally I was going to attempt to cram into open days prior to August 9 but I figure if I have jury duty that week I may as well spread it out a little. It would be sort of bad to start a new job and have to be gone for jury duty on the second day. So I will be listing August 14 as my official first day to be available to work somewhere.

They wash (not sterilize) syringes for re-issue to clients for administering medicine.

They re-use paper drapes and gauze out of surgical packs that do not resemble anything I was taught in school or have even seen.

The shelves are full of suture material that expired in a previous century, and that is not an exaggeration. When I asked about that I was told it was perfectly OK to use that on animals.

The doctor performs internal surgery wearing only gloves. No mask, gown, or even washing his hands ahead of time. I think the gloves are just to keep the blood off his own hands. I even heard oen of them say the repeat business from internal infections was pretty good.

The people working there presently cannot even do toenail trims without needing to stop the resulting blood flow. I did not see them successfully do this even once.

They needed to do a jugular blood draw from a dog - I watched the other "tech" stick the needle in and then go fishing around with it - causing considerable tissue damage. Eventually he got a syringe full of bright red blood. I doubt he hit the vein.

Pain medicine following internal surgery costs $36 extra. Two of the three spay/neuters they did while I was there did not get it and I spent most of the day listening to them cry afterwards.

Their radiograph machine is in the middle of BOARDING. Every animal there is dosed about a dozen times a day. They had me do multiple radiographs with no badge.

Only one cat came in there. Apparently they don't see a lot of cats thank god - this one was an old hyperthyroid who was there for euthanasia. He sat alone in a cage between the two crying dogs until the end of the day, and then the DVM drew up some quantity of Beuthansol (never heard of this stuff). With no preparation, he did a cardiac stick with this then went back to his office. They left me to pronounce death and had the cat in the freezer in less than a minute afterwards.

Anything I might add after that would be superfluous. I am heading over there right now to tell them I won’t be back.

Technically not really, I have an 8 week microbiology course that I need to complete the degree, so I don't actually fulfill graduation requirements until August 2nd. But they are nice enough not to make me wait around 10 months to graduate with the class of 2008, since all of my RVT specific education is now completed.

For the next 8 weeks I'll be still working part time at the clinic I did my work experience class at. Somewhere at the end of August or early September I'll take my State Board exam to get my official RVT license. The national VTNE exam is only done once a year so I have to wait until January 18 for that.

Its interesting how unrelated social events are marking all of these turning points for me - the Seaside Ball happens right after the pseudo-graduation, the Avalon Ball happens right after I graduate for real, and Further Confusion happens the week right after the national boards.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I need post op drugs.

The cat is just fine.

(P.S: As an RVT I don't actually cut anything. The doctor just steps back after the procedure is technically complete tells me to close up everything, which I did OK once she reminded me to reverse the knots on the simple interrupted suture I were using.)

Done it plenty of times on models, but this was the first time I've done it on an actual animal.

So what do they give me? An ancient stray cat with almost no blood pressure and tiny little veins. But I still managed to do it, so I guess I'm ok. I also syringe fed her food, gave her 100CC of LRS and a couple of meds I forget the names of. Antibiotics & eye drops for a jaundiced left eye, but the right looked OK. She is getting the best possible care at this point.

Skin & bones, 18% PCV and the most ictaric (yellow) looking plasma I've ever seen from that test, so this old kitty isn't doing so well. Friendly purry old thing though.