RSPCA Clinic(al)

Well, it's only been most of a term, but our rotation group finally had a go at playing grown-up vets with real cases.

Admittedly, the RSPCA clinic is a small clinic doing fairly basic things, but the point is that we were taking histories, doing examinations, and generally taking charge of what was going on in each case. In groups of three, of course, and with an actual qualified vet on hand backstage, but still.

I'd just like to clarify that when we do any of our rotations, we have to have our attendance signed off in our Black Book.

I tell you this because I left my black book in my locker at the vet school at the end of the previous day, and now you'll understand why I had to head out at 7am to get to the vet school and back before getting the bus to the RSPCA clinic. Excuse me while I find a reasonably soft spot on my desk to smack my head against...

I was kind of hoping we'd get mostly dogs, just for the sake of familiarity, but our cases went cat-[two kittens together]-dog-kitten. I'll take this opportunity to blame Greg and Sam for hogging all the canine cases and denying me the opportunity of a proper amount of doggy contact for the first time in ages. ;)

That said, the pair of kittens, be-flea'd as they were, were obscenely cute, being about 2 months old. We were conducting the physical exams with the owner out of the room, and on finding fleas there was some excitement as we would now get to advise on flea treatment but also put some of our Parasitology to use... I can't remember quite how Megan phrased it, but it went something like:

"If they have fleas, they probably also have..."
[Lowri and I join in to chorus in a gameshow host voice]
"DIIIIIII-pyLIDium!"

Shortly after doing this we remembered that the high volume of all the animal noises in the waiting room gave quite a good indication that the room wasn't very well soundproofed, so I do wonder if anyone heard it and, if so, whether they thought our next consult would be called in with a, "Mrs X and Fluffy - come on dowwwwwn!"

It was, in general, a real learning experience (what, in Cambridge? Nevah!), albeit one that tended to go slightly off-rail when owners insisted on staying with their pets and watching what was going on.

Afterwards, we headed off and admired the general autumn-leaves-falling-sun-shining surroundings as we waited on the bus. Lowri serenaded us at the bus stop with "The Most Beautiful Girl" (this may have been incidental to the song being stuck in her head, rather than a premeditated attempt to entertain us with country music) while we discussed Greg's desire to convert the local cars into giant robots, and then the bus came, leaving us off with about 25 minutes for lunch... roughly 20 of which would be required to get home, get changed and bike to the vet school for the next lecture.

Ah well.

We were at least finished at a sensible time, so I was finally able to carry through on my promise to buy myself a functioning watch.

It has kittens on it. :)