Reg Med Day 3 and 1/2 of Day 4

Yesterday we had a few lectures in the morning but at the end of the morning we put on a biosecrutiy suit and then were sprayed with a glowing powder.  Then we had to degown and then get scanned with a black light to see how contaminated with the powder our normal clothes were.  The object was to not have any powder on us but most of us had gotten contaminated.  Before we did the powder, the instructor took a photo of us (see below). Then in the afternoon we went out to the veterinary research farm to work on cows.  First we scanned their electronic ear tags and learned how to put the information into a hand held information device.  Then we aged them by looking at their teeth.  Next up was the caudal tail fold test.  This is a test that is used to test a cow for exposure to tuberculosis.  Normally you inject about .1mL of tuberculin antigen into the fold of the tail of each cow.  The tail fold connects the underside of the tail to the cows rump.  The antigen is injected intradermally, meaning into the skin, not below the skin like dog and cat vaccines go. However, we just injected saline, not the actual tuberculin antigen. We ended the afternoon learning how to draw blood from the coccygeal vein, the vein that runs directly in the middle of the underside of the cow's tail.  It was a much better day than Monday and Tuesday.

Now, today, we had a short lecture on transmissable spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs).  These diseases include mad cow disease, scrapie in sheep and goats, and chronic wasting disease in deer.  Then, we went to the necropsy floor and learned how to collect the obex (it connects the spinal cord and the brainstem), the tonsils, and the retropharyngeal lymph nodes, tissues that are needed to test sheep for scrapie.  We end the morning with a 50 minute lecture on the investigative and enforcement agency of the USDA-APHIS.

Now, here's the photo (can you tell which one is me?):