This month I started my internship in a clinic in Shilin District. I was recommended to go there and practice as an intern by Dr Liu in iTrust clinic because he knew that I was interested in orthopaedics. I go there twice a week and for the first 2 days, I already observed 3 surgical operations which I have never seen in Hong Kong. First one was a tibial amputation using the Achilles tendon as a flap to protect the amputation site. Second was a patella luxation of both sides of a poodle. This is a very common disease in poodles but I have never seen the operation because surgery is usually recommended in higher grades of luxation only, so this is a very rare opportunity. The procedures involved were simpler than I expected but I knew that it was only because the surgery was performed by an experienced surgeon and I hope that I can be as skilled as them in the future. The last surgery was a femur repair. The dog’s femur was fractured into 4 pieces so repairing with a bone plate alone was not good enough in order to hold all the fractured pieces together. As a result, an intramedullary pin was used in combination with a bone plate to hold the fragments in place. I was mesmerized by the fluidity of the performance of the doctor because he completed the whole surgery all by himself with minimal aid of another surgeon and the whole operation was well under his control. He didn’t have to hesitate at all no matter what situation comes up. This was a very precious experience and I really appreciate Dr Liu recommended this clinic to me.

—Ernest Yu

There are many job opportunities about animals available for students in NTU, and this month I was employed as a worker to take care of the pigs, which are parts of the experiment in the veterinary research centre of NTU. Basically, what I have to do daily are clean the cage for the pigs, feed them as well as collect the faecal sample of each pig respectively. Since I participate in the latter part of the experiment, the pigs looked really enormous the first time that I saw them!

Indeed, the pigs are not as dirty as people think. They poop on one side that the faeces are not able to get in touch with them. The space of the room is not that big, but it is so crowded that I always get super tired each time after I have finished cleaning the room! Nevertheless, I am still so grateful for this short moment in which the cute piggies bring me so much joy and happiness!

—Linda Lau