Eye Surgery!

Well, before I talk about today, I will mention a little bit about Tuesday.  Tuesday morning's lab called "therio clinical skills."  We were in the clinical skills learning center working with cow, goat, pig, horse reproductive tracts and trying to get a feel for what to expect when palpating animals that have been pregnant for a certain amount of time. This was to prepare us for next week where we start our palpation labs, palpating horses and cows (more on that to come next week).  Anyways, today's lab was ophthalmic surgery.  We had a lecture explaining the different procedures they wanted us to do and then it was off to lab.  Each group had a dog or cat head on which to perform various procedures.  We performed procedures such as temporary tarsorrhaphy, temporary eyelid tack, entropion repair, full thickness eyelid resection, and an enucleation.  What are these you might ask?

Temporary tarsorrhaphy: closing the eyelid over the eyeball to protect the eye

Temporary eyelid tack: tacking the upper and lower eyelid in puppies whose eyelids are just too big for them right now.  When the puppy grows "into their eyelids" then the tack is undone and the eyelids will be back to normal.

Entropion Repair: entropion is when the eyelid is rolled inwards towards the eye and then the hairs can rub on the cornea and make irritate it and potentially cause an ulcer.  We cut a slice out just below the eyelid and then stitch the opening closed, thus pulling the eyelid down (or up if it is the upper eyelid) and removing the roll so that now the eyelid is normal.

Full thickness eyelid resection: this is used if there is a small mass on the edge of the eyelid or in cases of ectropion (too much eyelid so that is may even roll out and away from the eye).  We make a little V-shaped slice out of the eyelid and then sew it up, thus removing part of the eyelid (and the mass if it is being performed because of a mass) or shortening it in cases of ectropion.

Enucleation: removal of the eye

Now that you have had your ophthalmology lesson for the day.....

Other than lab, class has been going fine, tons and tons of information (I guess that's what happens when you have 19 hours of lecture week!  Our midterm exam is next Friday so my friends and I have already been studying away for that!