Nicole Schnell

Today was very exciting!  Unfortunately I didn't get to sleep in this week on my day off, but it was definitely worth getting up early and spending the day at Rood & Riddle.  I got to see all kinds of neat stuff.  I got a pretty good overall tour of the entire clinic today I?d say.  I spent a little bit of time at each of the various buildings and specialty areas and got to see a little of what goes on at each of these different places.  I started the morning off in radiology where I got to help take x-rays.  I actually saw the first quarter horse I've seen since I've been here, and he looked so short after being around thoroughbreds all the time!  We also did x-rays on a yearling that had a hole in the bottom of his hoof.  He had originally had an abscess that had gotten really bad and ruptured and a hole had formed all the way up to the bone.  It looked like it hurt pretty bad!  After radiology I got to go into a couple of different surgeries.  One was an arthroscopy, where they use a scope to look into a particular joint by creating only a small incision.  By doing this they can easily detect the source of pressure or pain in a joint or area of the lower leg.  I also got to watch one of the doctors place screws into a horse's knee.  That was really neat, they actually use a drill to put the screws in, and it took no time at all!  After surgery I spent some time down in the podiatry area and watched a couple of horses have some really neat looking shoes put on.  At Rood & Riddle they actually have a whole section dedicated to horse?s feet.  Their equine podiatry specialists are also trained as farriers so they can diagnose and then treat with corrective shoeing methods as necessary.  I also spent some time in the reproduction area where I got to watch a stallion collection, and then went into the lab where the doctor extended the semen and checked its motility and morphology.  They actually have a computer at the clinic that hooks up to their microscope and it will circle and outline dead sperm so that you can get a better picture of what each sample looks like.  That was pretty neat to see, very high-tech!  I also got to watch a scope on a mare that was being checked because she has had trouble in previous years getting pregnant.  The doctor performed the scope to look at the inner lining of the uterus and then she did a uterine lavage to clean out the uterus in hopes of determining the underlying problem to the mare?s infertility.  Later in the afternoon I got to watch a couple of bladder scopes on two different geldings.  They place a scope up the horse?s urethra and are able to drain the bladder while watching from the inside to see what types of debris are present and what the inner lining looks like.  I also saw a doctor perform a spinal tap on a horse that was suspected to have a neurological condition.  Just as the afternoon was winding up an emergency colic was brought in for surgery and I got to go in on that surgery which was so awesome!  The doctor had the horse?s intestines pulled out and he was moving them around trying and feeling down into the horse?s stomach to find the source of the colic.  The horse was a broodmare that had foaled 4 days earlier and it was discovered that her cecum had become displaced or twisted the wrong way.  The mare made it through surgery fine, and it looks like she is going to be okay.

So today was a lot of fun!  I got to see so many different things, which was really exciting.  I got to meet a lot of different types of doctors and ask a lot of questions, so I definitely felt like I learned a lot!  Tomorrow it?s back out to work at the farm!  I?ll post again soon!