Telegraph Canyon Animal Medical CenterMentor: Rossana Higar
Organization Description: A full service animal hospital that specialized in all that is surgical and dental. My role: I did a mix of office and medical tasks. Those consisted of vaccine preparation, surgical pack making, client greeter and pet check-in, file finding for appointments, pet caretaker, after-surgery preparation and kennel specialist tasks. |
Photo Essay
Usually when I would help out the front desk with tasks, that would usually involve greeting clients for exam appointments. This would consist of calling their pet/s name and lead them into an exam room. Then, I would greet them and take their pet for weight and temperature. That information would be written on the clients file and then left by the door for the doctor to grab and inspect. Finally, I would tell the clients their pets weight and then tell them the doctor will be attending them soon. Each encounter is different with both humans and their pets. Meet the best employee of our clinic! Max the cat. He is the light of our clinic. He also has no tail which he wags like a dog. I would try to engage in play with him. I never succeeded, he is such a lazy cat. |
Every morning, I would start the day with laundry. The facility constantly used towels for surgery so the laundry basket was never empty! Every Tuesday, we would prepare vaccines. The clinic offered discounted vaccines on Tuesday’s and Saturday’s. Those days were extremely busy! Once in awhile, we would shred papers that contained personal information of our clients. They would usually have a phone number, address, or even personal payment information. We spent hours shredding. Sounds boring right? Nope, it was fun. These packs were difficult to assemble. These packs are used for surgeries. Imagine the tiny components that are in these! They’re a struggle to clean, prepare, and wrap. After the machine bellow the blue packs will sterilize them fully. The machine uses distilled water to bring to a high temperature. I still smell the burnt hospital smell that came out of the machine. I recall the phone calls we would receive in the back of the clinic where I would create these packs. Frequently we would provide services to feral cats. Feral cats are untamed and sometimes are very moody. Some would escape at any chance they’d get. You have to be careful with ferrels since they can really hurt you. In this picture I’m stepping on a net with a feral cat underneath. The towel calms the cat down. I took care of it while we were preparing its surgery. Barnacle is our clinics fish. I would greet him every morning. I adored his calming nature and tiny yet classy tank design. This here, is a dog who is barely conscious. Don’t be fooled though, the poor thing will soon fully regain all senses anesthesia prevented. Most surgeries were for neutering or spaying peoples cats and dogs. |
In the clinic, we test for ear mites in some dogs that come to get checked out. It was a slow day at the clinic and one of the Doctors asked us if we wanted to see some ear mites. I walked to the back of the clinic to check it out. I looked under the microscope and gasped. Under the microscope, this is what the mite looked like. To some people it looks scary, ugly, or fascinating. To me, it looked fascinating. The size always varies when weighing a dog. Some dogs do not fit on a scale, some are so light, you feel the scale won’t pick up their weight. Some dogs cooperate, some struggle. It’s always super spontaneous and I enjoyed that. After surgery, the dogs and cats would be resting on a towel like those above. We would patiently await for their tongue to react and move in order to take out the tubes that help the lungs breath. When the tube is pulled out, we would put an e-collar upon request and put the animal in their assigned kennel. Sometimes we would clip their nails if they really are in need of it. |
Transcribed Interview
Internship Project
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First coming in the clinic I wasn't sure what project I was going to work on. I noticed that in the back, things were a bit disorganized in the order of components that go into a surgical pack.
I decided to dedicate my time to learning the process of creating a pack. Then, organizing the area accordingly. |