My Internship at Timberview Animal Hospital A presentation by Samantha Lang

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY, my first day! This is the practice’s main sign. My mom is a nurse, but she isn’t currently working, so she let me use her scrubs. I got to dress the part!

The good doctor, Sara E. Habig. She’s hard at work!

This is Jameson, Dr. Habig’s cat. He’s really cool. And he has a strange deformity…

…he’s got thumbs! So strange, but really cute!

This pretty girl is Cassie, the “hospital cat”. She lives at the clinic because she doesn’t have a true home.

This is one of the exam rooms. Being a small business, they only have two rooms for exams. This is the “cat room”. There’s a fixed table in the picture, and a scale off screen. The “dog room” has a scale that is much bigger, and moves up and down so the patient is level with the doctor.

This is the surgery room. I actually spent a great deal of time in here.

This is the machine that monitors and maintains the life signs of an animal. The top line is the heart rate, the middle is the oxygen level monitor, and the bottom line shows the breathing rate. It administers the isoflurane, or anesthesia, and supplies oxygen.

This is one of the patients, back in the kennel. The kennel has 14 cages; 2 of them hold supplies, and one houses Cassie.

When a patient is placed in a cage, a strip of paper is taped to the bars that gives you their owner’s identity, their name, breed, gender, and explanation of what they are here for.

All in all, I really enjoyed myself. But…

It can be a hard job, even for an intern like myself. A lot of my duties were just cleaning up. Sometimes all I could do was sit and read vet books because appointments weren’t until later. I needed a lot of energy drinks for my eight-hour days. It may seem like it, but it isn’t all boring. Most of it is fun… 

Like the animals…

…the occasional, unusual cases…

…the friendships…

…the good-humored staff…

…all of these animals and people made this internship fun. And you know what the best part is?...

The bloody procedures!!!

See this pup?

He had this on his side. It looked like it was breathing!

Doc cut it open to look at it better.

It was a worble, or a botfly larvae. Ew.

See this this Labrador?

He needed dental.

I held that mouth open until Doc finished.

These are three pieces of one rotten tooth!

This kitty came in for a front declaw.

Here are three of the claws removed, on the left. Dr. Habig said it was like taking off the distal phalanges of the human hand, which are circled in the picture on the right. Ouch.

With lots of pain medication in him and thick paw wraps keeping him from biting the wounds, the kitty went home later that day.

Overall, this was the most interesting case. This 13-year-old black Lab came in for a breast tumor removal and a spay.

That tumor was HUGE.

We got the area cleaned up and totally shaved, then started to remove it.

The first cut…

About midway…

Nearly off…

Blood from a minor artery sprayed at Doc. We had a laugh over that!

Aaaaaaalmost…

And it’s off! Then we weighed it out of curiosity.

14.5 ounces! Almost a pound!

Now to begin sowing her together, stretching her skin to cover where we removed the tumor.

The spay was done directly after the tumor was removed.

Bye-bye, uterus and ovaries!

Yay! All put back together. She went home, got her stitches out the next week, and has been doing great.

Fun as all of this was, there were sad things, too.

Like owners neglecting their pets…  These were TWICE as long as the dog’s whole nails.

More neglect...

The deathly ill that were lost…

And of course, the most painful part of all – euthanasia, putting a beloved pet to sleep. I saw four myself while I was there.

I really loved the internship that I did this summer. I thank everyone involved in getting me into the program, accepting me into the practice, and transporting me to and from work. This experience will very much stay with me my whole life.

Fin!