Blog 16: Answer 2

1. How can a veterinarian best provide comfort to a pet during a serious procedure?

2. The best way a veterinarian can provide comfort to a pet during a serious procedure is by making the environment of the hospital comfortable to be in.

3. The best way a veterinarian can provide comfort to a pet during a serious procedure is by proper animal restraint and technique.

4. Why my second answer is true:
    - Restraining an animal is the most common way to calm an animal during a vet visit
    - Proper animal restraint and technique is necessary because you don't want to do it with too much force that will end up hurting the animal or not enough force that you aren't able to restrain the animal
    - In my interview, Dr. Hill said that minimal restraint is the best way to calm an animal so the next time it sees you it will act calmer due to feeling comfortable and relaxed the first vet visit

5. Trout, Nick. Tell Me Where It Hurts: A Day of Humor, Healing, and Hope in My Life as an Animal Surgeon. New York: Broadway, 2008. Print.

6. "Dog and Cat Handling and Restraint." Pennfoster. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2014.

7. Overall I believe most of my research and interviews have helped me develop my second answer which is one that I feel comfortable talking about since I have experienced restraining animals at my mentorship. 

Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Approval

1. What I will do for the 30 hours required for Independent Component #2 is continue to go at my mentorship every Saturday for 4 hours or possibly find another animal hospital to mentor at. Every time I go to my mentorship I learn new things and going there will help me learn more about my topic.

2. It will be very difficult for me to prove I did my 30 hours due to not being able to take pictures of the animals but I could possibly take pictures of the animal hospital when there is no animal in that room. For example, the exam rooms, the lobby or the surgery room. I could also ask my mentor to write a note or call to assure that I did the 30 hours.

3. I believe going to my mentorship more hours will help me learn more about veterinary medicine. Since I have been mentoring there since August, they give me a lot more stuff to do rather than starting to mentor at a new animal hospital where no one knows me and they start me off with the basics. Having known more the Loma Linda Animal Hospital's workers has made me feel more comfortable mentoring there and they give me opportunities to work with the animals hands on that no other animal hospital will allow me to do. My mentorship has helped me see my topic more in depth.

February Post: New experience

Yesterday I went to my mentorship from 8am-12pm and it started off as a regular day. It was calmer than usual and I cleaned the kennels, walked the dogs and gave water and food to the animals as I usually do. At about 11:30 am, many emergencies started coming in. The one that interested me the most was the one of a dog, Yorkie, who needed a cesarean section because one of her puppies was stuck. We got prepped for surgery and another volunteer and I were assisting during the surgery. First my mentor started to cut open the dog's stomach and started giving the puppies to another nurse and I to rub and make cry to make sure they were alive. I was also given the job to raise and higher the isoflurane that was given to the dog. My mentor later sowed up the stomach of the dog and put her in a cage so she would start waking up. The nurse and I were in charge of the puppies and taking care of them. I have never experience birth before at my mentorship and it felt amazing that I got to assist with something great like this. It was a new learning experience for me and I hope I get to experience different things in the future at my mentorship.

This is how the newborn Yorkie puppies looked like.
(Photo from Internet)

Blog 14: Independent Component 1

·       Literal

o   I, Stephanie Soriano, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 33 hours of work.

o   My mentor helped me complete my independent component.

o   For my independent component I worked an extra 33 hours at my mentorship, Loma Linda Animal Hospital. I did the same thing I would usually do. For example, I helped with treatments of animals, cleaned the kennels, helped with surgeries and gave vaccines to different animals.

·      Interpretive

o   Working extra hours at my mentorship has helped me learn more about veterinary medicine including working with different types of animals I could have never imagined at an animal hospital like ferrets, snakes, pigs, goats, birds and chickens. It has also helped me answer my EQ by giving me more evidence to my Answer 1, which was the answer I gave for my Lesson 2 presentation. All of the work I did is under a link called “Independent Component 1” under the links section. I decided to make a different link so I wouldn’t confuse it with my other senior project hours. Due to having to get permission from animal owners to take pictures of their pets, I was not able to acquire any pictures.

·      Applied

o   As I said before, my independent component 1 has helped me better understand my EQ and has helped me come up with answers to my EQ. One example of what I see every time I go that my mentor and his nurses do to help an animal calm down is by first putting a muzzle on the animal for safety precautions and later providing a sedative to help an animal calm down. If the animal is aggressive, they use a long pole with a rope at the end to handle the animal. This rarely happens at the animal hospital because we usually try to provide a calm environment so my mentor is able to work on the animal. These types of scenarios has helped me learn more about animal restraint and handling, which is another one of my answers to my EQ. As I continue mentoring at the Loma Linda Animal Hospital, I believe I will better understand my topic.

Here is a picture of where I did my independent component #1 at.