Went in to shadow for the first time.....

[jtom]

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Today I went in for shadowing for the first time, very interesting experience. When I came in two feral cats had been brought in by a trapper to be neutered. I was excited as I was told that would not be happening that day. So I watched them neuter both cats; I thought I might get light headed as I have not seen a procedure like that (even though neutering is not invasive). After that they took blood samples and clipped their ears so the trappers would know they had been nuetered.

While they were doing this a tapeform revealed itself. I had a question, when handling feral cats, is it ok to not wear gloves since you dont know anything about them? I hope thats not a stupid question. I had no idea so I was not sure but the vet techs were not wearing any and the vet was but only while nuetering them. I applied pressure to the cat while they drew blood. After that they showed me around and they were definetly full in the kennel area. They had one appointment today for a lab mix that had a severe ear infection.

I also talked to the vet for a long time about vet school. She was saying that I should apply instate but to also apply to the cheapest schools as the debt got out of hand for her. She said that she would have seriously thought more about becoming a vet if she had known how much debt she would be getting into (she characterized it as a "mortgage payment"). She also said it has gotten harder to find work as vets right out of school and that specializing would be a good idea to consider. She then said as a man that I would have an easier time finding a position after graduating because there are so few male veternarians, not sure if that is true.

Lastly, she talked about how in todays economy that most owners do not do regular checkups and will only go in for emergencies. She said that she doesnt have alot of regular appointments and the majority of the time she has them all done before lunch ( I got there at 8 and left at 1030 due to the fact we did everything) and that the rest of the day she has walk-ins who didnt make appointments.

She invited me back later in the week to watch her do a teeth cleaning. She said that alot of the time they end up removing teeth so it is more then just cleaning.

So far I am very pleased with how things went, definetly a career I will pursue.

 

[BlacKAT33]

congrats!! sounds like you found a nice place to gain experience!! from my experience, it is rare to find that much time to actually talk to the vets lol usually mine are SO busy its hard to get a conversation in. I doubt you can appreciate the time as much since it is your first experience, but just remember if she is talking with you this much it is really precious time and you are super lucky to have found her!!

the debt thing is true, and there are many threads about this. majority of the current vet students recommend picking the cheaper school. of course, this isnt always possible for people who were rejected from their IS school but got in at an expensive OOS school. It is also personal opinion and depending on your circumstance it can change. Personally, i thought i would die if i went to school at my IS so i took my name off the waitlist and accepted an expensive OOS spot. However, I don't have any undergrad debt, i have some money saved, and i am in a serious relationship so I have another income and once I graduate I know we will have 2 incomes.

as far as the male vs. female thing, i have no clue since I'm not in vet school now. it would make sense since there are less males, but at the same time I know that grades and experience will also matter. I'm not sure what schools look at and how much gender would affect your application. It may also depend on each school.

Specializing-you will make more money. But at the same time, you will have to delay your loans and you get paid very little until you are finished. I also think this just depends on each situation. The SA vets in my area are always super busy, there is never a second of free time. One friend of mine wants to specialize, but he decided to start working for a couple years because he wanted to pay off his debt a little bit. I say just do what makes you happy, you will eventually move up the ladder in the area you choose. But what is the point of goin through vet school and accumlating debt if you choose to do something you don't like? Doesnt make sense to me.

anyway, glad your day was good and im sure you will see some amazing stuff!! you're so lucky to have found a nice vet to shadow!

 

[heylodeb]

YAY! I've been hoping you would find a good place soon. Hopefully, her practice will pick up a little bit more and you'll be able to see more. Dentals are interesting to watch - I haev NO interest in learning how to extract teeth after watching, lol!

As for gloves - in my experience, gloves are used very rarely in vet med (outside of sterile surgery, of course). I've never acutally asked why, but I've always thought it was because most pet diseases are not communicable to humans. Anybody else have a better reason??

 

[BlacKAT33]

oya forgot to respond about the gloves. my vet also rarely uses gloves, usually only during surgery. i do find it strange since i work in a lab and we wear gloves ALL the time. and these are on sterile mice hahaha but it's the rules. Oya, the only other time i see people wear gloves at the vet clinic besides surgery is to express anals!! lol of course. since I am used to wearing gloves in lab i do find it strange to be handling animals that carry something, or even getting blood on me...kinda grosses me out since im so used to wearing gloves.

anyway, sry if i rambled

 

[DVMDream]

We rarely wear gloves as well, except for during surgeries, expressing anal glands, treating abscesses (especially important for this because valley fever is big here and because abscesses are cool, but gross), cleaning ears, and any animal that has a skin issue that could potentially be mange or ringworm.

 

[jtom]

oya forgot to respond about the gloves. my vet also rarely uses gloves, usually only during surgery. i do find it strange since i work in a lab and we wear gloves ALL the time. and these are on sterile mice hahaha but it's the rules. Oya, the only other time i see people wear gloves at the vet clinic besides surgery is to express anals!! lol of course. since I am used to wearing gloves in lab i do find it strange to be handling animals that carry something, or even getting blood on me...kinda grosses me out since im so used to wearing gloves.

anyway, sry if i rambled

Funny you mention that, another dog did come in and they did express her anal but I did not see it. I guess I just found it unusual to not wear gloves thats all. One of the vet techs got blood all over her hand and she didnt seem to mind. I guess Im used to wearing gloves.....

 

[cowgirla]

Funny you mention that, another dog did come in and they did express her anal but I did not see it. I guess I just found it unusual to not wear gloves thats all. One of the vet techs got blood all over her hand and she didnt seem to mind. I guess Im used to wearing gloves.....

If you wear gloves, you won't get a speck of blood on them. Instead, said blood will splatter up and down your arms and ruin your clothes. But, your gloves will stay clean!

Better to not wear gloves and simply scrub your hands when you are done.

It's like murphy's law of veterinary medicine.

 

[sumstorm]

In zoo med, we wear gloves a bit more often. I am so accustomed to gloves that the LA guys make fun of me. A nice thing about using them routinely; I don't struggle to thread catheters or have difficulty palpating when in gloves. However, I supply my own gloves.

there are zoonotic diseases; so don't assume there isn't some risk, but the general risk isn't high. So far I have had cat scratch fever, seal pox, and crypto (10+ years of animal work.)

 

[Minnerbelle]

As for gloves - in my experience, gloves are used very rarely in vet med (outside of sterile surgery, of course).

Except in shelter med (though even that depends on size of shelter and protocol), it can be the difference between a happy shelter with high animal turnover rate, or a shelter FULL of ringworm and URI. At the shelter I worked at, as well as the high volume wildlife rehab center, the rule was that gloves MUST be changed between cages.

 

[jtom]

A couple more things I forgot to add. The vet said that alot of people do not like cornell because it has a different method to teaching, she said that they teach according to the system and you do most of your learning alone or something along those lines.

Yea I mean I guess when that tape worm appeared I thought it might be wise to put on gloves but I obviously didnt say anything.

 

[Tobysgirl81]

The tape stage of the worm is not infectious. Tapeworms are transmitted via fleas. The icky moving segment you saw is actually more or less a "package" for delivering eggs. The segments sort of dry up around the pet's anus and hind end, and are deposited into bedding. Flea larvae that are in the bedding actually consume the tape eggs, which are hatched and then mature as the flea matures. Transmission from the intermediate host (flea) to the final host occurs when a cat or dog eats the flea...and it then attaches itself to the intestinal wall. The proglottid stage (or tape stage) is gross, but actually pretty harmless to people.

Having said that, I still would suggest washing your hands if you've handled a cat with a tapeworm infection. Nothing like passing tapeworm eggs on to yourself 😛

Treating a feral animal for a tapeworm infection is pretty pointless. Yes, it may help clear the infection for now. But its not like they're going to trap the cat every month to apply frontline or advantage, and without removing the source of infection you're not really doing anything long term for the patient. And, in a lot of cases, these cats eat mice or rats or rabbits who are also tapeworm carriers, so even if they WERE treated with anti-flea medications they would likely reinfect themselves. Tapeworms, while definitely not ideal, don't really cause hugely deteriorating effects in healthy animals. Many cats and dogs can live relatively normal lives while being infected. They're mostly gross, inconvenient, and definitely a problem in already ill patients.

We do a lot of handling of healthy animals without gloves, probably for the general idea of "they won't get me sick". However, certain cases warrent special care - chronic ear infections (usually mdr bacteria of some sort), draining tracts, open or non-healing wounds, skin infections, possible fungal infections... If you have doubts, put on gloves. Likewise, anything with a drain, tube, catheter (urinary or jugular, not necessarily peripheral) or something sticking out of it should be handled with gloves to protect yourself and the patient. Any open fractures should also NOT be handled with bare hands. But we see a lot of "badness" so to speak...So I'm a little more judicious with my use of gloves 🙂

 

[PrimalMU]

I've only experienced performing an examination on a pet with gloves once, and it was last week. We had a cat in with an open wound (since Thanksgiving, no less, but the economy is partly to blame) and the doctor suspected that it may a cutaneous tuberculosis infection. We obviously didn't want to risk handling the cat without gloves.

 

[rileydog]

If you wear gloves, you won't get a speck of blood on them. Instead, said blood will splatter up and down your arms and ruin your clothes. But, your gloves will stay clean!

Better to not wear gloves and simply scrub your hands when you are done.

It's like murphy's law of veterinary medicine.

😀 Love it! So true

In the SA hospital, I occasionally wear gloves usually with bad skin problems, dentals, anals, gross cleanups and stuff like parvo. I always wash my hands in between animals or at least use hand sanitizer. On the other hand, at the wildlife rehab clinic, I wear gloves before handling any animal and change after each one. Guess it just depends on what you feel like, and what all the other people in the clinic are doing.

 

[Tiktaalik]

We actually didn't even wear gloves during exams with the real sketchy-looking dogs in Central America unless they looked to have a major skin problem. All the snap-on-snap-off would have taken too long and wasted a lot of supplies, so we just went the hand sanitizer route.

Sounds like your first day went pretty great! Much better than my first day - on my first shadow day, I got left alone in a room with a couple and their dog, and it had a seizure and died before the vet could get back. Everyone was yelling at me to do something and I was like "I don't even remember the doctor's naaaaaaaame!"

 

[168135]

At the first clinic where I volunteered, I questioned them about not wearing masks 🙂eek🙂 and once the doctor didn't even wear a cap 🙂eek:😱😱) and not changing gloves between surgeries 🙂eek:x100).

When I asked about the mask, the vet said that there are very few illnesses that can be spread from humans to animals... but I still couldn't help picturing the vet sneezing into the incision and thinking that can't be good.

I think the only time I wore gloves in a clinic was to clean out the isolation room. Other than that, I wasn't really doing that much... just made sure to wash my hands well after every chore and kept my hands away from my face and mouth while I was there.

 

[Nephromaniac]

Oh my gosh Tik... that would have been mortifying! I thought it was bad when I had to see an abandonment Euth of 2 cats left on the door on my first day shadowing (which was bad... but they were in v. poor condition & it was balanced by getting to help puppy-rub for a Doxi C-section that same day)

 

[HopefulAg]

At the first clinic where I volunteered, I questioned them about not wearing masks 🙂eek🙂 and once the doctor didn't even wear a cap 🙂eek:😱😱) and not changing gloves between surgeries 🙂eek:x100).

I've seen several who don't wear masks nor caps, but not changing gloves between surgeries seems like a veeeeeerrrry bad idea. The other stuff is risky (sneezing, hair falling, etc) but you HAVE to cross contaminate if not changing gloves. How else can you do the surgery?

I guess their reasoning is that the incision site should be relatively sterile (if they prepped it right) and the inside will be sterile due to immune system? But even then, you're introducing foreign blood, at the very least, into each animal. I can't believe they'd do that.

 

[168135]

Sounds like your first day went pretty great! Much better than my first day - on my first shadow day, I got left alone in a room with a couple and their dog, and it had a seizure and died before the vet could get back. Everyone was yelling at me to do something and I was like "I don't even remember the doctor's naaaaaaaame!"

Omg... I can't believe you had to go through that I probably would have ran from the room screaming.

The kennel attendent and I were asked to keep an eye on a cat that was in heart failure. The owners were on their way so they could say their goodbyes and put the cat to sleep. When the doc left the room, that cat was fine. We started cleaning kennels. The attendent turned around, turned white, and said "Is it just me or is this cat not breathing?" "... Yup... he's not breathing... I'll be right back" *runs to find the doc*

 

[Tiktaalik]

Omg... I can't believe you had to go through that I probably would have ran from the room screaming.

The kennel attendent and I were asked to keep an eye on a cat that was in heart failure. The owners were on their way so they could say their goodbyes and put the cat to sleep. When the doc left the room, that cat was fine. We started cleaning kennels. The attendent turned around, turned white, and said "Is it just me or is this cat not breathing?" "... Yup... he's not breathing... I'll be right back" *runs to find the doc*

I basically did, lol - I busted out panicked, looking for the doctor. Of course I didn't know it then, but remembering now, that dog was totally dead pretty much right as I left the room. It's a humorous story now (well, in the sense that my reaction was funny), but it was terrifying then, lol


As for not changing gloves, I feel like I'd be pretty uncomfortable working with a vet who didn't change gloves between patients. If we could do it in Nicaragua, you can do it anywhere, and I really think it's something that should be done.

Although I do know one REAL old-timer (he must be 70+ at this point) who sometimes operates bare handed (!) after a severe handwashing. He's from the old mostly-livestock days of vet med, though, so it's not really that surprising. He doesn't do major things (spays, etc) bare-handed, but for everything else, just lather 'em up if the gloves aren't on hand.

 

[cowgirla]

Although I do know one REAL old-timer (he must be 70+ at this point) who sometimes operates bare handed (!) after a severe handwashing. He's from the old mostly-livestock days of vet med, though, so it's not really that surprising.

Yeah, I've worked for a few of those too.
Those are the same ones that use the same surgical pack for multiple surgeries. Right after eachother. They change the scalpel blade, and that's it.

One of them would go dog--> cat, or cat-->dog, but one of the others didn't even put that much thought into it.

 

[Tiktaalik]

Yeah, I've worked for a few of those too.
Those are the same ones that use the same surgical pack for multiple surgeries. Right after eachother. They change the scalpel blade, and that's it.

One of them would go dog--> cat, or cat-->dog, but one of the others didn't even put that much thought into it.

I'm glad the profession has modernized so much so quickly. I mean, we owe a lot to the old guard, but I think our patients deserve better tech and hygiene now that we can give it to them.

 

[der2002]

agreed!

I'm glad the profession has modernized so much so quickly. I mean, we owe a lot to the old guard, but I think our patients deserve better tech and hygiene now that we can give it to them.

 

[eventualeventer]

Wow, I'm glad I haven't had to handle an animal dying without permission (or even with permission) by myself yet. I've watched a couple (anesthetized, slated to be euthanized at the end of the experiment) rats die during physiology lab, but I haven't watched any companion or large animals die of their own accord, ever -- they've all been euthanized when the end was apparent. I've seen a couple horses get to the point of acute multi-system organ failure, but they were euthanized.

RE: glove wearing. At my current job (referral horsepital), we wear gloves every time with neonates, isolation cases (along with gowns or suits and plastic boots, in the case of the latter), and horses with suspicious skin conditions. We also wear gloves when cleaning wounds, doing site prep, or handling drains and non-venous catheters. We are not required to wear gloves for using IV catheters, although IV catheter placement is done with sterile gloves and aseptic technique (and is not done by us non-licensed types). There are hand sanitizer dispensers all over the hospital and we are expected to disinfect and/or wash our hands between patients.

As an aside, the horsepital is pretty strict about isolating cases that are potentially infectious. Diarrhea is assumed to be infectious and causes horses to be isolated in place for 24 hours, with samples collected to check WBC and do a fecal culture for Salmonella. Horses with persistent diarrhea, persistent unexplained fevers, or a fever + low WBC count go to the isolation building, where each stall has separate ventilation and it is easier to keep them truly isolated. Anything that even raises the suspicion of Strangles or EHV is isolated; wounds that grow MRSA will also cause a horse to be isolated. While sometimes it can seem like a pain for us nurses (isolated horses take longer to deal with and require more work), it makes sense from an infection-control standpoint.

The only thing that I think could be improved would be to wear masks with the horses with projectile diarrhea, since it is easy to be exposed to droplets when the horse is hitting the wall with diarrhea from 3 feet away and it is splattering everywhere. I actually became fairly ill for more than a week with Salmonella after treating such a horse at a previous job. Besides the question of transferring germs between patients, I believe that the vet community is sometimes too blase about the prospect of zoonoses.

 

[sumstorm]

I was told that scrub rather than glove is very accepted in Europe and asia. There was a study last year that found no difference in post op infection between scrub or glove. I wear gloves for my protection with exotics. One thing I am nervous about is cross contamination in clinics via treatment rooms and fomites on staff (watches, clothes) particularly w/PVD and some other diseases with unknown pathogenecity.

 

[jtom]

haha I had no idea I would create such a discussison on gloves! I think wearing gloves is just something I am used to doing after working in a restuarant for years and having to always wear them. Its one of those things where you just feel weird without them, I personally could never cook for people and not wear gloves so I guess that has carried over in this situation.

 

[168135]

haha I had no idea I would create such a discussison on gloves! I think wearing gloves is just something I am used to doing after working in a restuarant for years and having to always wear them. Its one of those things where you just feel weird without them, I personally could never cook for people and not wear gloves so I guess that has carried over in this situation.

Slightly OT:
I work in a fast food restaurant. By law, we aren't required to wear gloves when preparing food... we just have to practice good hand-washing techniques. The inspector was actually relieved to find that we don't wear gloves... there are a number of reasons... I had a coworker accidently lose the finger to one of his gloves and didn't realize it until a customer found the tip in her poutine. Also, people who wear gloves wash their hands less frequently, it's difficult to tell if you get a contaminant or old food residue on the gloves, ect. The kitchens are in plain view of the customers and in the four years I've worked there, I only had one person get snippy at me because the people out back were not wearing gloves... but they were pretty entitled.. they also got snippy with me because we "boost" ( microwave all our burgers for a few seconds so that the cheese melts). They obviously never been to any of our stores before.

Back on topic, the clinic I volunteered at is the largest, most-well known and expensive clinic in the area. It's scary how many corners they cut... I've discussed it on this forum before... I had thought about leaving, but that ment that I would have NO experience... unfortunately, I've had to go crawling back to them because nobody else wants to take me on.

 

[DVMDream]

I worked at a clinic with two doctors who were older as well and they both would use the same surgery pack on two patients. Usually the would do a neuter and then a spay with the same surgery pack. They did change gloves between surgeries, but then we cleaned the gloves, powdered them, and autoclaved them to be re-used. They also re-used syringes and needles after autoclaving them. I found that odd because those are fairly cheap.

Also, at this place I was taking care of a small dog that had been hit by a car. I was used to my old practice where all of our attention gets placed onto that dog and we try to find all of the injuries as quickly as we can. Well, the vet left me with the dog while he went off to do a neuter and told me to set an IV catheter and put it in a cage. Well, the dog's blood pressure was so low I could not get an IV catheter in. I kept trying. The vet then said to just give it SQ fluids and put it in a cage. The dog ended up dying right there in front of me. I felt so bad because I thought if we had actually tried to figure out what all was wrong with this dog we might have been able to save it and we may not have, but I really felt like the vet neglected any effort to really help this dog. So much more could have been done.

At all of the clinics I worked at they were very cautious about transmissible diseases. Any dogs or cats that had diarrhea/coughing/sneezing were placed into a specific room. Then after that pet would leave the room would be completely bleached. We get a lot of parvo cases here and when we go into those rooms we always wear gloves and then when we leave the room we step on a bleach towel to clean off our shoes. Then in the back we spray down our watches, stethoscopes, pens, and everything else that was in that room with bleach water. We also spray down ourselves. The tech that was in that room is then declared at the tech for any other cases of possible parvo and that tech also is not allowed into a room with puppies or older adult dogs, and adults that are not vaccinated. They are allowed into the rooms of adult dogs who have been vaccinated. We try to keep everything confined to that one room and then if the dog is being treated at our clinic it gets placed into the far back room where no other dogs are kept. This is true for any type of communicable disease; including kennel cough, FIV/FeLV, URI's, etc. The hardest part is trying to get the client to listen to us and to stay in the exam room we have put them in. They seem to always want to wander up to the lobby and walk around. 😡

 

[Nephromaniac]

Totally off topic... but there's talk of CPV reacquiring ability to replicate in cats (and even causing disease)! We always kept out parvo pups in the declaw room... but maybe not such a good idea anymore!

 

[HopefulAg]

They also re-used syringes and needles after autoclaving them. I found that odd because those are fairly cheap.

Lol at one of the clinics I worked at we autoclaved syringes. Didn't do needles, but I don't think that's a good idea from the patient's perspective any how (dull needles for shots? No thank you).

Anyhow, I can see the appeal of saving money on the syringes, as we do go through an awful lot of them, but I'm not sure the time spent washing, autoclaving, and putting the syringes back together really makes much of a difference in the cost savings. The employee could've spent that time cleaning or doing something that would've had higher returns.

Oh well, I reckon some day I'll be making that decision on whether I want grumbling employees over a wet/dry sink or to just sink those costs lol.

 

[twelvetigers]

They did change gloves between surgeries, but then we cleaned the gloves, powdered them, and autoclaved them to be re-used. They also re-used syringes and needles after autoclaving them. I found that odd because those are fairly cheap.

My clinic also does this. We check the needles for 'barbs'... It's a bit silly. I toss probably 98% of the needles.

 

[DVMDream]

My clinic also does this. We check the needles for 'barbs'... It's a bit silly. I toss probably 98% of the needles.

That is what we did too. I also tossed the majority of them because they had said "barb", were bent, or I just simply didn't like the way they looked.

 

[sumstorm]

I worked at a clinic with two doctors who were older as well and they both would use the same surgery pack on two patients. Usually the would do a neuter and then a spay with the same surgery pack. They did change gloves between surgeries, but then we cleaned the gloves, powdered them, and autoclaved them to be re-used. They also re-used syringes and needles after autoclaving them. I found that odd because those are fairly cheap.

The vet my mom worked for autoclaves syringes/needles, and it seems to be fine (they check the needles before every use....I would say they generally average about 3 uses.)

I have known vets to do back to back neuter/spays on the same surgery pack, discarding used instruments in between.

As for autoclaving gloves...that is a new one to me! I would figure you would bare hand if you were going to autoclave. I do know powdered glove use is now discouraged as it is linked to developing latex sensitivities.

 

[Tiktaalik]

For some reason, I always thought gloves would melt or weaken if autoclaved. Guess not.

 

[eventualeventer]

OP, don't worry, threads around here have a tendency to get hijacked.

Honestly, I'm a bit surprised by the needle autoclaving, since what I understand to be optimal standard of care is to change to a new needle before giving an injection in to the animal (as opposed to through a catheter) after pulling up a drug, since the rubber stopper dulls the needle. Of course, not everyone does that for vaccines, etc., but I would not want to use a needle that had already been used multiple times (drawing up a drug, giving it, drawing up another drug . . .).

To back up my perception, here's a line from the HSVMA/RAVS equine manual:

"[FONT=arial,sans-serif] Each time a needle punctures anything it becomes dulled. Dulled needles cause significantly more pain. For this reason a new needle should always be placed on your syringe prior to administration of an injection to an un-anesthetized patient."

.

 

[scb44f]

For some reason, I always thought gloves would melt or weaken if autoclaved. Guess not.

I had thought that too. One vet I shadow does this, and I was kind of surprised by it at first. At the other clinic, we wash the syringes thoroughly and use them for things that don't need to be sterile (i.e. Nutrical or medicine that has to be ingested).

As for using the same surgical pack, both vets I shadow use the same pack through most of the surgeries for the day. Of course the instruments are scrubbed and then placed into the blue solution (the name escapes me) until the next surgery. Neither one wears a mask or cap though.

 

[twelvetigers]

Chlorhexidine?

No mask or cap for mine either. The gloves are repowdered on the inside with baby powder. They only hit the autoclave for 20 minutes or so. I'm much more okay with the gloves than I am with the needles, especially since some techs that come though don't seem to be very good at catching the barbs.

We have like 50+ pairs of right handed gloves since if one gets nicked or punctured, it's the left one (the vet is right handed). Dunno what we'll ever do with those.

 

[scb44f]

Chlorhexidine?

Yes, thank you! I've been thinking about reactor design far too much this week... So excited to go into the clinic tomorrow and get my mind off of it!

 

[jtom]

I had a question for you guys: I am going in again on friday and was thinking about asking for a volunteer position. While I was only there for one day, I believe I made a very good impression and the vet really wanted me to come in again on friday. I was not sure if there is an appropriate way to phrase it, or not use the word "volunteer." Do clinics have people that stay past hours to watch over sick patients etc?

Now by no means do I want to stop the glove debate haha......

 

[DVMDream]

Chlorhexidine?

No mask or cap for mine either. The gloves are repowdered on the inside with baby powder. They only hit the autoclave for 20 minutes or so. I'm much more okay with the gloves than I am with the needles, especially since some techs that come though don't seem to be very good at catching the barbs.

We have like 50+ pairs of right handed gloves since if one gets nicked or punctured, it's the left one (the vet is right handed). Dunno what we'll ever do with those.

You can use them as a small drape for a cat neuter if you really want. There is a specific way to cut them to fit just right, but it is kind of cool. Although most of the time the vet hates having it there and takes it off within a few minutes so we stopped doing that. You could always blow them up and make a bunch of balloons out of them. Maybe you could have a glove balloon making competition?

 

[karmapple]

All the talk of reused needles makes me think of this.

 

[scb44f]

Ahh I was looking for that, Karmapple... I'd never seen it before, but the mental image has been stuck with me ever since a good friend of mine was telling me what his wife (who's in nursing school) learned.

I'm glad you posted it.

 

[Tiktaalik]

All the talk of reused needles makes me think of this.

+1. I've reused some in the past for LA stuff (after thorough cleaning, but that was only because we were in the middle of nowhere and needed to conserve resources.

 

[HopefulAg]

That last one looks grotesque. I wonder if that's juices, the sheen of the metal being worn (microfractures), or what.

I had a question for you guys: I am going in again on friday and was thinking about asking for a volunteer position. While I was only there for one day, I believe I made a very good impression and the vet really wanted me to come in again on friday. I was not sure if there is an appropriate way to phrase it, or not use the word "volunteer." Do clinics have people that stay past hours to watch over sick patients etc?

To answer the last question, some do, yes. But generally it's a tech that goes in to just check up on a few select cases (IE the ones that would need a tech there). Probably not something they'd let you do, however you might ask if you could accompany someone. Doubt you'd get to see a whole lot though.

And as to 'volunteer'. We recently had a discussion about the term volunteer, and how it can scare some doctors due to liability and what not. I'd just ask if you could continue shadowing and maybe express interest in more hands-on when appropriate (IE when she's looking for someone to restrain maybe go "I can help with that if you'll teach me how" or something along those lines).

 

[twelvetigers]

I would send that picture to my vet, but... I'm a weenie. I just toss the needles when I'm doing the sorting, more or less.

A glove balloon competition? Hmm... sounds fun. I need to rent a helium tank, too. 🙂

 

[DVMDream]

I would send that picture to my vet, but... I'm a weenie. I just toss the needles when I'm doing the sorting, more or less.

A glove balloon competition? Hmm... sounds fun. I need to rent a helium tank, too. 🙂

I just got a mental image of 50+ gloves blown up with helium on the ceiling of a vet clinic.

 

[eventualeventer]

OT, but does anyone else loooove the smell of chlorhexidine? The blue/clear Nolvasan type only, the Hibiclens I got from CVS once was narsty. I swear, if they made Nolvasan perfume I would wear it all the time. </weirdo>

 

[Allthingsequine]

OT, but does anyone else loooove the smell of chlorhexidine? The blue/clear Nolvasan type only, the Hibiclens I got from CVS once was narsty. I swear, if they made Nolvasan perfume I would wear it all the time. </weirdo>

I do love the smell of Nolvasan, but not as much as I love the smell of Roccal-D. There's just something special about a clinic freshly mopped with Roccal. 🙂 I've seriously considered ordering some to use to clean my house, (or wear as perfume, haha) but it's a little spendy and has a tendency to stain things that lovely green color!

 

[Nephromaniac]

Allthingsequine... if you were in TN I would move in with you & we could rejoice together in the wonderful aroma that is Roccal! I miss it so much now!

 

[twelvetigers]

I like the smell too - very clean.

There is a smell I hate though... it's stuff we use for enemas. I don't remember what it's called, but it smells so freakin' gross.

 

[eventualeventer]

Acetylcysteine? Doesn't that smell like cat pee?

I do like Roccal, but not as much as Nolvasan.