Vet Times

Tag: Skin

  • Ionised hypocalcaemia, pt 3: acute treatment and management

    Ionised hypocalcaemia, pt 3: acute treatment and management

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    Treatment of ionised hypocalcaemia (iHCa) is reserved for patients with supportive clinical signs, then divided into acute and chronic management. Since the most common cases of clinical hypocalcaemia in canine and feline patients are acute to peracute cases, this blog will focus on the acute treatment and management of hypocalcaemia. Clinical signs The severity of…

  • Intoxication: decontamination advice

    Intoxication: decontamination advice

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    Building on from last week’s blog on telephone advice, this is what I advise owners they can do at home if their pet has been exposed to a toxin. The main exposure routes are ocular, dermal and gastrointestinal. Ocular Acids and alkalis cause the most severe effects, as they can cause ongoing damage for some…

  • Occupational hazards

    Occupational hazards

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    Before I started vet school, I attended a workshop for aspiring vets where students shared anecdotes about the various occupational ailments they had experienced or witnessed over the years. Despite having to defer the start my veterinary degree due to a horse-related incident, I got through university largely unscathed by veterinary-related disease. I contracted a…

  • Breeding hate of caesareans

    Breeding hate of caesareans

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    They should be joyful operations – from a distressed, painful dog in a potentially life-threatening situation, to a fixed one, in less than an hour, with none of that unsatisfying mucking about with blood gasses or puzzling over blood results. The surgery itself is relatively simple and rather fun. To top it off, you (ideally)…

  • Life is unfair

    Life is unfair

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    I’m not a religious man, and I try not to be judgemental of those who are; in many ways, I’m in awe of their certainty. I’m the sort of person who, when push comes to shove, is not absolutely sure whether his favourite movie is Jaws or The Big Lebowski. To be absolutely confident about…

  • 10 minutes

    10 minutes

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    I have been doing this for a little while; at a conservative estimate, I have carried out more than 60,000 consultations during my career. Sixty thousand. That makes me feel a little strange (and a lot old). For the majority of my time in practice, my allotted consulting time has been 10 minutes. Sixty-thousand 10-minute slots…

  • Getting the most out of EMS placements

    Getting the most out of EMS placements

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    A few weeks ago, I finished my last final year rotation, and I’m days away from finishing my last ever EMS placement – where has the time gone?! Everybody warned us final year would fly by, but this is ridiculous. Surely it can’t be almost a year since I sat in one of the small…

  • Midlife necklace

    Midlife necklace

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    There’s a certain point in life where you realise you haven’t liked any new music for a while (with me that happened in 1990) and all film trailers you watch make you think of other films you’ve already seen – y’know, classic films, not this garbage. Fashion has become a struggle to keep up with…

  • The hard sell

    The hard sell

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    I’ve helped a lot of animals in my time, and I’ve made a lot of people’s last moments with their friends a little more bearable than they might have been. I get a lot of things wrong, but I get a lot of things right too – I was no God’s gift to the profession,…

  • Moments (part two)

    Moments (part two)

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    There’s a horrible moment we’ve all experienced – a nasty creeping sensation as it slowly dawns on you someone, somewhere has made a terrible mistake… This is usually followed by an even more unpleasant sensation as panic threatens to set in and you ask yourself a simple, horrible, question: was it me? This sensation is…