AAFP Panther Declaw

This Friday evening to Saturday evening I went to San Antonio with the American Association of Feline Practitioners to watch a panther declaw then do some practice visual-only medical exams at a wildlife sanctuary.

After a relatively long drive, we went out to dinner together as a group!


Saturday morning, we went to the clinic and posed for a photo-op before doing surgery!



We then weighed him, drew some blood, did a bunch of xrays then did 2 declaws to remove ingrown toenails that were causing him significant pain. This is a picture of me and the black leopard after his surgery.







Then we did some practice medical exams and got to see a lot of animals at the wildlife sanctuary. It was really interesting. Though, it got really hot, and because of some scheduling trouble, we ended up skipping lunch. So, by 3:45 I was hot, hungry, a little dizzy and totally ready to leave.

Lab Animal Medicine

We had the first meeting of the Lab Animal Medicine club today. And I'm very excited about the prospect of working with lab animals!

There are so many different kinds of things you could end up doing in lab animal medicine-- from governing type work (writing Good Laboratory Practices, GLPs) to taking care of animals used in reasearch to doing your own research projects. Also, it's a field that is in desperate need of new recruits (meaning that there's lots of available positions!) and it's in the top 2 most highly paid veterinary positions (starting salary is somewhere around $100,000!)

The downside? A 2-3 year residency then taking boards. (However, the residency does defer your student loans and pay enough to live on...)

So, this seems like a really great possibility! Now I just need to figure out what it takes to be competetive for lab animal medicine residencies!



Also, next weekend I'm going to an Wildlife Orphanage in San Antonio to watch a panther declaw and tour their facilities with the AAFP (American Association of Feline Practitioners). I'm pretty excited!