VN July 2023

Vetnews | Julie 2023 13 I was lucky in the sense that I was not placed alone at my post; it allowed me to bounce ideas back and forth and have a helping hand when needed. This also enabled us to have a set weekly schedule at the clinic. We would alternate days doing callouts, and Tuesdays and Thursdays were scheduled for elective surgeries like spays and castrations. Nevertheless, being placed alone at a post should not discourage you. A lot of posts are just single vet posts, and it’s up to you to plan your weekly schedule that you will be comfortable with. Other CCS clinics either do callouts in the morning and clinic work in the afternoon or vice versa. Do whatever is comfortable for you, even if it takes a month or two for you to figure out a routine that fits. The community quickly realised that the clinic had two vets, and we started seeing more and more cases month to month. We started building relationships with clients; they would entrust us more and more with their animals, accepting our advice and guidance with gratefulness. The caseload that we had at the clinic exposed us to cases that you would not easily see again in private practice. Even though we only saw a small percentage of the people from the surrounding area and villages, you have an impact on their lives at a much bigger magnitude than what you can imagine. Giving advice on a case and not being able to treat the animal, you may feel like you’ve failed the client, but then they thank you with great appreciation that you’ve come all the way to see them and their animals. Writing about the cases that I saw, I rather wanted to try and attempt to keep it simple and narrative instead of complicated and scientific; here are a few cases in that I felt I truly made a difference in someone’s life. I can still remember the first major surgery that I did on a cow. She had a severe case of Horner’s Syndrome, which resulted in her one eye getting a severe case of panophthalmitis due to trauma and exposure. The infection was unresponsive to the antibiotics that we had, limited to either penicillin or oxytetracycline. The owner was at first reluctant to remove the eye, the majority of farmers are reluctant to perform enucleations or amputations, and this is usually due to cultural and other beliefs. I convinced him eventually that I should perform the enucleation. In communicating with the majority of Commserv clients, the use of complicated terminology will not convince them but rather be simple in your word choice! During the surgery, he observed with great attention and curiosity and entrusted us with the procedure at hand. As the cow recovered during the following weeks, the farmer could not believe what a success the surgery was. The cow still had her facial paralysis, but by the end of my Commserv year had calved again, and the farmer was ever thankful. We saw a fair few cases of Horner’s syndrome; the majority I suspected was due to a severe infestation of brown ear ticks predisposing the animal to develop otitis. Another interesting case that I was initially caught off guard was a herd of cattle being affected with amitraz toxicity. An older gentleman phoned and described the clinical signs as follows - “My cows are vomiting; they are sleeping and don’t want to eat.” that was about the extent of his English vocabulary. This was a strange set of clinical signs, but as we all know, what the client tells you and what the real signs are can sometimes be heavens apart. On my arrival, the animals were already starting to graze, at least, and the “vomiting” turned out to be hypersalivation. The majority of the animals could be approached without restraint, and clinical exam revealed a bradycardia, and some were showing mild signs of rumen tympany. Getting a history from clients, especially with a language barrier restricting vocabulary, can be challenging, and fortunately, I did not experience this too often. In an attempt to get any answers, they mentioned they dipped the animals the night before. A true cartoon lightbulb moment, and that’s when I knew they probably made a mistake mixing the dip. It turned out they mixed a solution at 15 times the recommended strength, and thus the animals experienced signs of amitraz toxicity. Luckily the animals were already recovering and were monitored closely for secondary complications like pneumonia due to aspiration. All the animals had uneventful recoveries. Cases like these gave me satisfaction, not the cases that you necessarily did a lot in terms of treatments, but rather the cases Article >>> 14