First Week at Freie Universität Berlin Pferd Klinik

It was more or less a shock to realize how busy I will be the next 6 weeks. My normal workday is from 8.00-16.30, but then as a student I'm supposed to do either morning or evening shift every day additionally, and every other weekend or then 6 days a week. The morning shift is easier (6.30-8.00 but wake up at 5.00!) than the evening shift (which means you are free somewhere between 20.00 and 24.00, depending on emergencies and the patients..) but the evening shift is really good for learning. So lets see how my days are like :)

This is the stable for colic horses. They are rebuilding the actual internal medicine stable, so this is just temporary.

This week I got to know the systems, getting used to the language and how everything works. Everything is new for me since we haven't had any clinic at school so far. So I'm getting familiar with changing infusions, giving medicine, assisting at surgeries, basic stuff..

We've had some really interesting patients. Colic surgeries, arthroscopic surgeries, some really severely sick patients. There was this beautiful show horse which came from a 20h transport without a brake, and was totally in shock, bleeding from both nostrils, which we unfortunately had to put down. At the pathology institute (we were allowed to go there and see it for ourselves!! nice) they concluded that the horse had a constipation in the esophagus, which led to shock, which led to thrombosis and massive bleeding from the lungs and the liver. This animal died due to that long transport. Awful :(

And then there was this horse with a 20cm high club foot (i think it is called that, "bockhov") which had an invasive operation fixing the metacarpus, proximal phalangeal and sesamoid bones..and cutting the hoof with a circle saw. REALLY fascinating!

I've been following the internal medicine team, so we have mostly colic patients. But I can choose to follow any of the teams, and if there is an interesting surgery or something else going on, I'm allowed to go there. So there is always something going on!

I'm not actually sure what was done to this horse, but the support system is quite cool.  It can be set up to 300kg, letting the horse lean on it, but still the horse is able to lie down.

The people I work with are very kind and helping. And the horses are sweet. The work just makes me think of Rasmus, which makes me a little bit sad, but I need to get trough it. It's because of him I ended up studying veterinary medicine in the first place. So I'm looking forward to next week!

Paddocks for the clinic's own horses.

One of the treatment rooms.