Real LARGE Animal medicine


Today I had a chance to do some work at the Jax Zoo.....they really do a nice job there. There are two really superb Veterinarians on staff there, Dr. Andy Tier and Dr Nick Kapustin. I get to do the sonograms on cases that need more imaging. I had to look at a Zebra with a heart murmur that was being shipped to another zoo. Unlike the horses that I usually work with , zebras are NOT very cooperative and must be immobilized. This allows for a very good echocardiogram. In this case there wasn't much of a problem and the zebra should be fine to ship out. After the Zebra we went over to the Elephant house for some real large animal medicine. Due to the size of an elephant and equipment limitations you can only image tissue no deeper than 24cm ( with 5cm being just the skin). I was looking at the bowel wall for signs of any increased thickness. Even though I was behind the protective bars ,an elephant can still use it's trunk to reach around and grab you. The thought of being pulled through the bars did not appeal to me at all ,so when Dr Kapustin grabbed my arm and pulled me back when I wasn't watching the movement of the trunk......I was very greatful. I became preoccupied with the sonogram and did'nt notice that the elephant wasn't thrilled with what I was doing. I did get to make up by feeding her some fruit and pieces of bread .So hopefully when I do another study she won't be so upset with me. Now it's back to the smaller large animals for me.

Comments

Fran Jurga said…
Great post! Thanks! I will link to you from The Jurga Report on equisearch.com. I love the proportion of the space between the bars and hope that the elephant was not seriously ill.
--fran jurga
The Jurga Report
www.equisearch.com/
9:27 AM
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