Cardiology

I was lucky enough to have two weeks off over Christmas and my birthday and I went home to Utah to spend time with my family. It was fabulous and as always, hard to come back to school. Fortunately I got to ease back into my clinical rotations with cardiology, a two week rotation. There were three other students on this rotation with me and it was great! (Usually there are only 2 students) The first week was a little slow because of the New Year's holiday but we enjoyed being done early in the afternoon and having New Year's Day off. 

Echocardiogram machine and table

On this rotation I got more confident at hearing heart murmurs and classifying them. I also feel more confident about reading ECG's and treating various arrhythmias. I enjoyed watching echocardiograms on dogs and cats and thought it was fun when we were allowed to try our hand at  it ourselves. It's pretty cool to use the ultrasound probe and be able to see the heart beating and identify all of its chambers and great vessels. All of the techs, residents, and cardiologists were great and very committed to helping the students learn. 







We were lucky to watch a balloon valvuloplasty procedure where they insert a balloon through the jugular vein and into the heart and inflate it over a narrowed portion of the heart valve to try to open the valve up for better blood flow. The dog is under general anesthesia and they use fluoroscopy (real time x-ray) to visualize what they are doing. 

A ECG strip showing 2nd degree heart block

A chart to help identify heart structures on echo

We saw quite a few dogs come in with pericardial effusion (fluid build up in the sac around the heart) and it was neat to see how it looked on ultrasound and how the fluid is removed using a catheter and syringe. This is something I will see in general practice so it was good to have exposure to it now. 


I enjoyed this rotation a lot and feel like I learned a lot. 

Me practicing echo technique on a techs dog.

Currently I'm in the middle of my second rotation at Oregon Humane Society (OHS). I decided to go back for two more weeks of preceptorship credit. I'm loving it! Cute pictures to come in my next update!

Still waiting on the results from the NAVLE. Hopefully I'll be able to say that I passed it in my next update. Fingers crossed!