So today was my first ever live animal anesthesia where I played the role of the anesthetist. No one in my 3-person anesthesia team had ever done this before, which made it daunting enough to begin with. Add in a wonderful and charismatic but sadistic professor who (I strongly suspect but can't prove) deliberately gave our dog enough propofol as to cause induction apnea, meaning the dog stopped breathing and we had to administer artificial respiration on top of intubating, maintaining and monitoring our patient for the first time EVER! Not exactly how I'd expect an introductory lab to go, and way more intense than any of us were prepared for. Our dog was fine, we apparently did a good job (according to said prankster professor) but my team and I were very stressed out and shaky afterward.
On the bright side, I placed a lateral saphenous catheter for the first time. I've done cephalic catheters before, but this one is a little more tricky because the vein isn't perfectly straight and it rolls more than the cephalic.
Less than an hour after our dog woke up form anesthesia, without time to even eat lunch, I was off to clinical skills lab to learn and practice abdominal wall closure suture technique. My suturing skills are coming along nicely. Apparently I have good technique and beautiful knots when I get them right, but consistency and speed are things I need to work on. After two exams later this week and a much-deserved 3 day break in Puerto Rico this weekend, I plan on getting to work on practicing my suture skills. At some point I hope to make a video in which I demonstrate how to open and close an abdominal incision on the artificial "Rossie" model that they provide us and post it on here for future Ross students and anyone else who might find it interesting.
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