Giving Injections to Oranges

As strange as my title may sound, that is in fact what we did on Thursday and Friday in Vet Science. We practiced three of the four most common injections only leaving out the intravenous as oranges do not have veins for us to practice this on. We had a fun time but had a few hardships including the oranges squirting the "medication" back into our faces. We, all and all, had a fun time but had a few difficulties and I am happy to have the knowledge we gained this week.

We practiced these injections for two days this week and learned the four different types of injections or routes of administration to practice on our oranges. The first was IM or inter-muscular, a very common way to give an animal a vaccine and many different types of medication when you put the medication directly into the muscle. Sub-Q or subcutaneous is also a very common route of administration for vaccines and many different types of medication, this injection goes thru the subcutaneous fat layer to create a small pocket directly under the skin. Next comes the ID or inter dermal or an injection that is given into the skin layer; this will create a small bubble and is not very common but common enough to know how to administrate. The last one, which we didn't do because we couldn't do was the IV or intravenous is a route of administration that is given into the vein and absorbed into the bloodstream very quickly.

As you can see below, we practiced the Sub-Q, ID and IM to our orange victims or patients, you'll have to ask the oranges. The green directly in the middle of the orange represents the IM as the muscle is deep into the tissue so you would have to go pretty deep to reach and administrate the injection of the muscle properly. The red represents the Sub-Q, it may be pretty hard to see, but it would be just through the subcutaneous fat layer into just below the skin(if you zoom in, on the first orange slice in the first picture, you might see it). The last injection that my orange got was inter dermal, the blue injection directly into the skin of the orange. This was the most likely to squirt back at you if you did it too quickly at first because of how shallow into the skin the injection should be. We all in all had a very educational and fun week this week in Veterinary Science.                                 Thanks for reading:)

This Week In Vet Science

This week in class we covered the large and many might not understand, an incredibly difficult skill to master. Suturing involves knots, needles, skills and you being able to judge spaces between the stitches and just to remember to be gentle. As this skill is difficult and you could seriously do a lot more hurting than helping, our class decided to practice on bananas. Bananas turn black if they receive too much pressure from the person suturing and they have a nice thick skin that can help beginners learn. We learned and practiced two very common sutures and one kind that was very difficult and used very often and we did not focus on.

Non - continuous suturing is when every time you make the loop through both sides of the skins and each stitch is tied separately. Non continuous required the most time and knot tying experience but it had it's advantage and you could see that each stitch you did you got better at suturing. From the first stitch to the fourth stitch my skills of judging where the needle would come out and how far to place it and the cleanness of the stitch. The banana was not feeling the love of me messing up but I feel a little more confident in the suturing sense with this stitch.

Continuous suturing is when there is a knot at each end but not every stitch is tied separately. This stitch is much quicker as you don't have to spend as much time tying the knots but it has other advantages and disadvantages. These stitches were neater as they were the second suture was the second one we did. These were the two main and most interesting things that we learned this week in vet science. Thanks for reading! :)

Yesterday my vet science class and I went on a field trip to the Willow Street CTC where we watched four spay procedures be done and a dog get an x-ray done. We were walked through the routine and schedule of the facility and also every thing that we watched, surgery, recovery and x-ray, all steps were thoroughly explained and exemplified to us in a very nice, professional but laid back manner. We watched procedures that we have already been walked through in our class and it very much helped us with our learning as I am a visual learner and this just rounded off these lessons.

For our one assignment we had to right an essay with the full list and pictures to the procedure of a spay and a neuter, which we watched these procedures be preformed. Also we saw restraints that we learned in class be preformed. Lastly we learned how to brush and clean teeth and we saw this procedure be preformed at CTC.

Yesterday I learned that CTC isn't just for construction and welding and things like that but also for vet science and reproductive sciences which I think are really cool to learn. Also I learned that you could bring your pet to school there and groom or do whatever your doing that day. Lastly, I learned that at that location, you stay with the pet that was under anesthesia for at least 10 minutes after it can fully function again, which I though was cool that they have that much precaution to the welfare of animals when they have no liability or experience.