Day 8 and 9
Day 8: Today was our first full day in Chaing Mai! We spent the majority of the day at the rescue clinic learning about small animal medicine. Thankfully most of the material was a refresher from class I’ve taken at Findlay or things I’ve learned during my small animal clinic shadowing opportunities. We started discussing physical exams and how they should be conducted and what to look/feel for. Then they brought dogs into the classroom for us to practice our physical exams! It’s one thing to learn and memorize material from a book, but its an entirely different thing to actually apply your knowledge. After lunch, we learned how to properly put on sterile gloves, calculate correct medication dosages, and the fundamentals of performing a neuter and spay surgery on felines and canines. Before we headed back to the city, we had a Thai fruit tasting. We got to try some very bizarre fruits like mangosteens, rambutans, durians, dragonfruit, guavas, and salaks. I adventured out of my comfort zone and tried all of these fruits for the first time. The rambutans, guavas, and mangosteens were my favorite! For dinner, we went to a local Thai restaurant! I only had chicken fried rice but it was still very flavorful! We visited the street market again after dinner and I was able to try the famous ice cream where they scrape it into a roll. Unlike American shops, the Thai people actually make the ice cream right in front of me and then scrapped it into a perfect roll. I topped mine with oreos, chocolate chips, and marshmallows!
Day 9: In the morning we had a lecture about the cardiovascular system and different types of diseases that they can contract from fleas and ticks. Most of the cardio system was a review since we spent almost half a semester discussing it at Findlay (s/o to Profs. Rheubert and Aranyosi!). In the afternoon we got to go to the Animal Rescue Kingdom. ARK is a dog shelter with lots of very cute dogs up for adoptions! ;) We got to practice drawing blood from the cephalic and lateral saphenous veins! Hit the vein on my first try! When we got back to the clinic, we got to practice placing catheters and administering IM, subQ, and FNA injections. We used a balloon covered tomato for our injections and a fake vein to practice the catheters. After learning at the clinic, we got to got to a Buddhist temple to watch a holiday ceremony. For dinner we went to an American restaurant and I got grilled cheese!