Scenes from Nebraska

Early (very early, although my definition of early is rapidly changing since being in clinics) on the Saturday morning after my thesis defense, I caught a flight to Omaha, Nebraska. I was heading out for a week of Beef Cattle Calving at the Great Plains Veterinary Education Center affiliated with the US Meat Animal Research Center (more about that later). I opted to head out a day earlier than I needed to so that I could visit Paul (a former post-doc in the Roos Lab) and his family; they moved out to Omaha a few years ago for a faculty job at the University of Nebraska. They were gracious enough to host me for Saturday and Saturday night, and I got a chance to see Paul's lab, to meet some of his students, and to spend time with his family.

On Saturday afternoon, after picking me up at the airport, I got my tour of the University of Nebraska (a beautiful campus) and Paul's lab. After lunch with one of his students (who is contemplating coming to UPenn for the VMD/PhD program), we headed out to his home to spend the evening with his family. We had a great time! On Saturday evening, his oldest two children, Brianna and Ben, and I played outside for hours. I got told that I was "really cool for a grown up". We followed it up by reading two books together, Click Clack Moo and I Need My Monster.

On Sunday, we had a nice leisurely morning at their home, where we spent some time playing with my stethoscope...

Then I began my 2.5 hour drive west to Clay Center, Nebraska, home of the USMARC facility. As I drove out of Omaha and past Lincoln, civilization dropped away pretty dramatically... Just fields as far as the eye could see! Because I had been warned that supplies in Clay Center were somewhat limited, I stopped in a large-ish town for groceries and tried to not be perturbed when the bagger took my shopping cart, brought it out to my car, and unloaded it all for me... It's just creepy how nice people in the Midwest are! I arrived at the facility in the evening and got let into the dorm room by the security guard (they provide housing for $10 a night), made dinner, and settled in!

I'll post more about the rotation itself in my next post, but I wanted to share some of my photos of Nebraska and the USMARC facility.

Scenes from the drive:


Welcome to Nebraska! Where Ohio was characterized by ridiculous amounts of beef jerky, Nebraska has unlimited supplied for making your OWN jerky and sausage!


Welcome to the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center! USMARC is on 35,000 acres of land 4 miles west of Clay Center, Nebraska. They have around 6,500 breeding cattle (18 breeds), 4000 sheep, and 700 litters of piglets every year.


Much of the facility used to be owned by the military, and thousands of bombs were stored in bunkers across the land. Even though the bombs have been replaced with cows, the bunkers still remain scattered across the landscape. Most of them are empty, but some of them are used for storage of supplies, animal shelter, and even as "playgrounds" for the cows (they like to climb to the top of the bunkers).


Some views of the USMARC pole sheds (my attempts at artistry early in the morning or late in the evening between calving checks). This is the window into the "hot room", the heated area of each pole shed where people relaxed or worked on paperwork. Luckily, the weather we had was gorgeous, but one can imagine how amazing these rooms are in the winter months!


Round bales of hay are kept right outside the pole sheds to feed any animals that might be inside. While most of the animals calve outside on pasture, animals that they are concerned about can be brought inside so that they can be monitored.


The cattle are worked using the Gator and on horseback; each employee is assigned a horse when they are hired, and the horses move around from pole shed to pole shed with them as they are reassigned during the year. The majority of calving checks are done using the Gator, but when cattle need to be moved, nothing works better than a horse!


Just about every day, we were working at both sunrise and sunset. They were gorgeous, pretty much every day, and I always found a minute or two to watch...

Clinical Year Schedule Has Arrived!

So this week we FINALLY got our fourth year schedules! I can't even imagine how difficult it is to schedule over 100 students for rotations, especially considering all of our random requests and needs. It's a little frustrating to be 3 weeks away from our first rotation of the year and to have no idea where we will be. So here goes!

The first picture shows the year's schedule (in order) from May 2012 to May 2013. The first four rows are the ones I've already had, and the newly scheduled rotations start with the numerical labeling on the left hand side. Those numbers correspond to the rotation number, and the dates of each of those rotations are listed in the other picture.


Highlights include:

Starting Monday, I'll be in Philadelphia for two months straight, which is great because I don't get my Kennett Square apartment until July! Some of these rotations are pretty light (time-wise) like Radiology, and Dermatology. Small Animal Soft Tissue Surgery will be a lot more intense!

I'm scheduled for a one week rotation right before my externship in Oregon, which hopefully means I can take a little vacation on the west coast (maybe visiting Brendan and Maria in San Francisco?)!

I got Small Animal Emergency for my holiday rotation (starting the day after Christmas and going until the day after New Years), so I'll be in Philadelphia over that holiday week, hopefully with a little bit of free time to spend with friends!

Thesis Defense!

So after getting back into Philadelphia (from Ohio) on Sunday evening, I had quite a bit to do before my defense on Wednesday at noon, and not a lot of time to do it in! I spent Monday working on my slides and meeting with Shaheen, our tech guy, to improve the projector conditions in the room I was presenting in, since so many of my slides were complicated, colorful genome views. Tuesday I spent meeting with David (my boss), practicing my presentation, and finalizing the slides.

On Tuesday night, Brendan (my brother) flew in from Milwaukee to cheer me on. He was the first to get a PhD in our family (studying tribbles or tribology or friction or something like that), and I flew down to NC with Dad for his defense a few years ago. He returned the favor, which was awesome :)

Most of Wednesday flew by; I can't say that I remember much of my preparation, the presentation, or the private defense. I think it went pretty well, although there are always parts of any presentation you wish you had done differently afterwards. I was so surprised to see so many Combined Degree friends there; it was really awesome! Plus Brendan, Dad, Brian, Maureen, Sara, Cara, and Brittany! In addition, David invited Marc-Jan Gubbels, a professor at Boston College, to come down as an unofficial outside reviewer; Marc-Jan and I have always gotten along well at meetings, etc, so I was really excited to have him be a part of everything as well.

Afterwards, there was celebration with champagne and cake, then margaritas and mexican food (which Mom joined us for)! All in all, it was a great day, and a huge stress relief to have this part of everything completed!

Of course, although so much of the stress is gone, there is still so much to do in the lab. I'm working with an undergrad (who is continuing some of my genotyping work) in all the spare time that I don't have. I still have quite a few revisions to do on my written thesis before I can turn it in for good, plus, there a few things I would really like to finish before truly leaving the lab.

It's very strange being at the end of this part of the journey though... I feel like I've been a part of the Roos lab for a very long time; it's been a sometimes frustrating, sometimes fun journey, but it's hard to imagine life without that large piece. I've learned a lot about myself and how I work by doing biological research, and I've also learned a lot about how to investigate and think through problems. I'm proud of the research I've done, and I hope that it continues to advance after I move on to different things. Although there have been plenty of times in the past few years that I was ready to throw in the towel and just quit, in the end, I'm glad that I stuck with it, and I'm proud of what I've done.

That being said, it's really hard to now switch gears so completely. As much as I am looking forward to all of my veterinary rotations, it's hard to start all over again. The past few years have been like slowly, painfully crawling out of a gutter, and after 5 years of making little progress and slipping backwards, I finally feel like I've made it out on top! I completed my PhD! Only to fall into the next little ditch and to have to start crawling again... Coming back into veterinary school after so many years is hard; I don't remember anything from classes 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year, I haven't had to think "like a veterinarian" for years, and I'm entering a class that I don't know very well. It will all work out in the end, but the next few weeks will be rough as well as wonderful!

Here are a few pictures of my time in the Roos lab! Beth and I organized a few beach day trips during our time in the lab. Highlights include grilling some awesome food on the beach, playing frisbee and vollyball on the beach, and getting "lost" in the Pine Barrens on the way there!


Every year, a Molecular Parasitology Meeting is held in Wood's Hole, Massachusetts. On our way there, it's a lab tradition to stop at "The Place" for lunch.


During my three visits to MPM, I got to know some awesome investigators, including Ashley (one the left) and Marc-Jan (on the right). Even though they remind me how short I am, we still had a few great times together!



In June of 2011, members (past and present) convened in Ottawa for the Bi-Annual Toxo Meeting.

The Trip to Ohio

So before I tell you about the actual visit to Ohio, let me start with a perfectly ridiculous anecdote from the day we left Philadelphia. As always, I had way too much to do and not enough time, so was trying to pack, run errands, and get the house and animals in order before I left. Of course, everything seemed to be going ok, until I realized that the refrigerator (that we got fixed 3 months and 3 days earlier) was not working again. After a call to the repair company, confirming that the repair was only under warranty for 3 months, poor Brian got sent out to buy another fridge, while I finished getting ready. Already, thanks to that, running behind, I went upstairs to take care of Jenga, the foster kitty, before I left. When I opened the door to her room, I found that she had been trying to burn my house down, as smoke and the smell of smoking electronics wafted out at me. How does a cat in a small room try to burn down a house? Why, by vomiting on the power strip, of course! And trust me, if you think vomit smells bad, try burnt vomit. Luckily, my timing was somewhat fortuitous as I was able to unplug the smoking power strip and throw it away. So yeah, that was the day that I left Philadelphia... Really, I don't understand how such ridiculous things seem to happen to me every time I try to leave town...

But, get out of town I did! And while the majority of the week was spent in the hospital, the trip to Ohio was also a chance to catch up with a bunch of friends I haven't seen in a long while and a chance to spend some time with Shana, since she and I were traveling out together (she was doing the Animal Behavior Clinic Rotation at the same time that I was playing with all the food animals).

We had a pretty uneventful drive out. Highlights of the trip were crossing state lines, increased speed limits, and finding an ungodly amount of beef jerky once we crossed into Ohio. Oh, and doing a home visit and placing Grady, one of our rescue dogs that had an adopter outside of Pittsburgh!

While we were in Columbus, we stayed with Meghan, a friend from her time as the behavior resident at UPenn. We got to spend most of our evenings catching up with her and her three pets: Hercules (the adorable biting terrier), Juno (the princess chihuahua), and Primo (the best cat in the world), not to mention Josh, her boyfriend, who cooks the best turkey burgers I have ever eaten.
On the first weekend we were there, Mary, another behavior resident friend from UPenn who is now living in Montreal, flew down to visit us. I unfortunately spent most of the weekend in the hospital, but we did get to enjoy a few meals together (and drink a few glasses of wine). It was awesome to see her, but unfortunately I didn't do a very good jobs documenting the occasion with photos. Here is the only proof I have that Mary made it to Columbus...

During the second week, we got to have dinner with some other friends from vet school, Lisa and Jordan. Lisa was in our veterinary class and is now finishing a dual Pathology residency/PhD; she is almost as crazy as me! Jordan is a "real" doctor, finishing his Radiology residency. We got he exciting news that they will soon (next year) be coming back to Philadelphia for a few years AND we got to meet their two newest additions- Frank, an adorable puggle, and Archer, a really cool cat. Their house is amazing, the food Jordan cooked for us was unbelievable (even for vegetarian food :) ), AND the company far surpassed the rest of the evening! It's funny how a few years can pass without seeing friends, and yet you can pick things up just as if you had seen them yesterday...

The second weekend, Lisa, who was in our original vet school class, drove down from Michigan to spend some time with us. We once again had a fantastic time, but failed to take pictures of most of it. Even so, here's one of Lisa and Meghan eating sushi at the little Japanese cafe I accidentally found when I was driving around looking for a quick lunch one day. That weekend we spent running a few errands; we went to the Verizon store to get Shana a new phone, went to TJ Maxx for some shopping, and finally managed to get Shana's hair cut. She donated enough hair for at least three needy children!

After brunch with Lisa on Sunday, we headed back home to Philadelphia so I could finish preparing for my thesis presention (the following Wednesday) and Shana could start her Small Animal Dentistry Rotation.

Food and Fiber Medicine and Surgery Rotation at Ohio State University

I've spent the past two weeks in Columbus, Ohio particpating in OSU's Food and Fiber Medicine and Surgery rotation. This was an absolutely amazing first rotation; I learned so much and was surrounded by some awesome people. The Ohio State students were in their last rotation of the year, so there was definitely an air of celebration floating around the hospital for the two weeks. I got matched up with two students, Lydia and Gabe, both of whom taught me a lot and never seemed to run out of patience with me (either that, or they just hid it well!).

This old man Nubian goat was one of our first patients. He was in the hospital when we started our rotation, but went home a few days later. Jared was in heart failure and had a high parasite load, so life was pretty tough for him. He had trouble getting up and down on his own, so we spent a lot of time helping him get up, encouraging him to move around a little, and keeping him comfortable. He was not one of our most exciting patients, but he did steal a piece of all of our hearts, especially when he got excited about a fresh bowl of grain :)

He certainly wasn't the only goat that we saw during the two week rotation. We had quite a few goats come in with reproductive problems: a few dystocias (when animals in labor aren't able to deliver the babies, for any reason) and some does with pregnancy toxemia. Many of these gals needed C-sections to deliver their kids successfully, and it's always kind of a surprise to find out how many babies there are, and if they are doing ok. One goat came in after being in labor all day. Her kid's feet were coming out her vulva, but she hadn't been able to get him any further than that! For some reason, her cervix hadn't dilated, so there was no way he was going to make it naturally. We all expected that little kid to be dead, since he had been stuck for quite a few hours, and we were hoping that she would have another kid still doing ok inside. To our surprise, the little kid was still alive! As some of us worked to sew up mom, the rest of us us worked to save him. A few hours later, both mom and son went home, hopefully to continue to do well! They weren't all so happy though; one little pygmy goat came in after being in labor for two days; her owner just left her in the field while she suffered. The owner's mother finally brought her in, and the kid was long dead. Luckily, the momma goat was doing much better when she left, so we were optimistic she might make it through the ordeal, even if her kid didn't... And finally, these two little kids were C-section babies born a little too early. They are sitting here in an oxygen cage, but after only two days in the hospital, they went home with their mom.

We also had a bunch of alpacas come in during our stay. Alpacas are camelids, so they are related to llamas and camels. They are primarily raised as pets and/or for their wool. They always come into the hospital with a companion, so they are always in pairs. They are hysterical to watch and have ridiculous habits. These guys loved to eat hay while they were laying down! These two were also big "singers"; as you walked in front of their stall, they would sing to you (and to the other animals). At one point, we had camelids in 4 stalls, so there was always a little chorus of alpaca noises. One of these alpacas came in with a tooth root abcess that needed surgery- you can see the swollen side of his face in the picture on the right. Before surgery he needed an x-ray of his skull to find out where the abcess was and how the surgeons needed to approach it. After the surgery, he stayed with us for a few days as the huge incision was left open to drain (and the bandaging was changed every day). He was a model patient for all of this, although during the very last day of our rotation, he decided he was officially done being poked and prodded (he hated getting his antibiotic shot every day) and spit on his student! You see, alpacas don't have very many ways to express their displeasure, so aside from kicking and laying down (cushing), their other option is pretty much to spit on you (which actually is more like vomit- they spit regurgitated food material). The alpaca on the left is one of the teaching alpacas at the university. This ridiculous looking fellow basically just hangs out until they need him for something. On one of our less busy days, we sedated him to trim his teeth and his hooves. What he really probably needed, though, was a haircut! Finally, these guys on the right are two more of our alpaca patients. These two were less than a year old were just too cute and pretty sweet. The one on the right was in the hospital to check a tooth root abscess that had been treated medically, so we didn't have to do much with them.

We also saw quite a few cattle- a pretty even mix between dairy cows and beef cattle, and even a few calves. These guys came in for wide variety of reasons; we saw quite a few dystocias, a few foot problems, a neurologic issue, and a few down cows. This little gal came to us when she was about two weeks old. Unfortunately, she had too many problems for us to save her, despite trying. She hadn't gotten enough colostrum (the first milk from the mother) which gives her immune protection against a lot of diseases. She may have also had an umbilical infection, but she came to us with two joints that were swollen and infected. Even though we tried treating her, she just never got better. In this picture, you can see that she also developed some neurologic issues as she got sicker; the right side of her face including her ear and eye lid are both drooping.

Because cattle are so big and often (especially in the case of beef cattle) not interested in cooperating, we have quite a few fun toys to help manipulate them. Any large animal that we need standing still and immobilized will come off its truck, down a chute, and into a transporter. These have a head gate in the front to catch the animal's head, metal sides that are moveable, and wheels, so you can move the animal where ever you need to! In many cases (for C-sections or abdominal surgeries), we can even do surgery in these transporters; the animals are lightly sedated and their surgery sight is blocked with anesthetic before surgery. We can prepare them for surgery and then move them directly into the surgery suite! This photo is a picture of Lydia on the transporter doing a rectal exam of this beef cow.

The other big toy that we use, primarily to look at feet, but also for any superficial surgery on the legs or belly, is the table shown here. This table starts standing straight up and down, the animal can be brought up against it and immobilized against the side of it using two belly bands and the halter (which goes through one of the holes and holds the head still. Then the table is rotated so that the animal ends up on its side. The feet can all be immobilized with chains, giving you access to the feet without putting anyone in danger of being hurt. This bull on the right is being prepared for surgery to convert him into a "teaser bull". They use these bulls to tell them when females are ready to be bred, but since they don't actually want them to be the father, we did a vasectomy surgery to prevent them from actually getting the cows pregnant. This other cow came in with bailing twine wrapped tightly around her foot. Because she's a beef cow out on pasture, it wasn't noticed right away, so in order to get the bailing twine out and to clean everything up, she was put up on the table and her foot cleaned (here by Sara, one of the other students on the rotation). You can also see a tourniquet wrapped around her limb; we can use this to cut off most of the blood supply to the limb for short periods of time, allowing us to inject lidocaine to numb the area without having to sedate or anesthetize the whole animal. It's amazing how well this works; most of the time, after the lidocaine injection, the animals can't feel you working at all! She stayed with us for a few days, getting hydrotherapy of the wound every day, and finally went home with a cast on her foot to allow it to continue healing at home with support to keep the foot still and from getting infected again.


Finally, our last fun "toy" is a sling that we can use to hoist up any of the large animals (there are slings of all different sizes for different animals). Animals this large don't do well laying down for long periods of time, so "down" cows (cows that are not able to stand, for whatever reason) are sometimes hoisted up in the sling for a little while. There is also a huge tank that can be filled with water to help support them, so after being hoisted up, the cow can be moved along a track into the tank (the back of the tank comes off to allow you to move her in). In the tank, the back is replaced and it is filled with water, giving the cow a little bit of water therapy. For down cows, spending a few hours in the tank can help them a lot, although in a lot of cases, they are too sick and don't improve despite this effort. In the first picture, you can see all of us getting this cow into the sling. We start her one side, put the sling as far under her as possible, and then roll her over to get her positioned on the other side as well. As you can imagine, this is quite a feat with such a heavy animal. In the second picture, you can see us lifting her up.



We did also have a neurologic patient come in; this HUGE bull had been becoming progressively more neurologic over the past few weeks, and when he came to us he could basically just stand still and turn to the left; if we attempted to turn him to the right, he would fall over. He had a corneal ulcer on one eye from not being able to blink completely, and while he clearly wanted to drink, all he could do when he put his head in his water bowl was to blow bubbles. He was also stuporous, so he mostly just stood in his stall. That being said, he was also really big, so working with him was a constant challenge. The fluid line that you can see here was attached to a carboy that hung over his stall; it was filled with 18 liters of fluids at a time, and it STILL needed to be refilled multiple times per day. Also, since he spent so much time turning to the left, his line got twisted and frequently needed to be replaced. We were surprised to find that over the few days he stayed with us, with supportive care and antibiotics, he improved dramatically! On the day our rotation ended, he was able to turn to the right and to drink out of his water tub on his own! While this was great, it also meant that working with him became even more of a challenge! Hopefully, he continued to improved and got to go back home!

We also had a beef cow come in for calving watch; her owner had thought she might be in labor, but when she got here, it was clear that she still had a few days to go. Every day, we checked on her hourly to make sure that she was doing well and not showing signs of labor. While we fully expected her to have her calf overnight when we (the students) weren't there, she decided to let us be a part of her delivery instead. When we came in for our PM treatments on Sunday night, she was laying down and starting the process. We took short breaks during our shift to check on her, and soon she had delivered a perfectly healthy, perfectly happy little heifer calf! Our favorite moment was right after the deliver, when the calf started moving and making noise, and mom leapt up startled, wondering WHAT was going on behind her! By the time we left that evening, the calf had gotten up on her own and was starting to move around the stall. They both went home that very night. After having a very frustrating weekend with some really sad cases, it was really wonderful to just watch nature take its course and to see this healthy little calf be born! In the top picture, you can see mom cleaning off her calf right after she was born, nudging her along to try to get her up. In the picture on the left, the little heifer is standing and taking her first steps!


Finally, a few other miscellaneous cases! These little piggies came in to be neutered and officially count as my first pig neuter ever. In case you were wondering, Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pigs have REALLY BIG testicles. They also have really big voices, which, if you have ever worked with a pig before, already know. These little guys were so curious, if you sat on the floor, they would come up and sniff you, but the second you reached for them, they ran away. Catching them was a little bit of a challenge, and of course after you caught them they screamed bloody murder until you put them down. Unfortunately, we had to get their temperatures and weights and then carry them into the surgery suite; sure enough, the screamed the entire time!



We also had a few little goats come in for dis-budding. It takes the horns a few weeks to solidly attach to the skull, so dis-budding of horns usually happens in the first week or so of life. This one came in with his sibling to be dis-budded; we started by shaving of the hair and prepping the area with scrub, then cut around the little horn buds to remove them.











This little Boer goat came in because he was cryptorchid (meaning his testicles stayed in his abdomen instead of descending into the scrotum) and his owner wanted him to be neutered. He was my first chryptorchid surgery, and I LOVED this little goat, even though he pretty much hated me and hated being carried around. I got this little hug in before he completely woke up from anesthesia :)

Stay tuned for a next, much shorter entry on all the fun we had OUTSIDE of the veterinary hospital in Ohio!