31/5/2020
Kakato Scholarship 2020 May‘s Diary

Apart from faecal examination, urine can also help vets in the diagnosis of disease. Urine is the by-product of an animal’s body fluid after a series of metabolism and chemical reaction happened in the body, hence the examination of it could help us get more physiological information of the renal and hepatic functions as well as infection.

The urine sample used in this experiment was collected from the same dogs of which the faeces were analyzed in the last experiment. Under gross observation, the urine was pale yellow in colour, which is normal due to the presence of pigments, and transparent, showing no observable impurities inside. Then, we needed to put a dipstick into a test tube containing the urine sample, and then took it out and waited for a minute to do the observation. There are numerous boxes on the dipstick paper. Each of the boxes can tell the concentration of different substances by its colour shown, including proteins, glucose and white blood cells. Therefore, dipstick is very informative yet not quite reliable due to its relatively low accuracy. The result of the experiment was that each value shown was within the normal range. This dog is quite healthy indeed!

-Linda Lau

This month I continued to do the diagnostic test for the microorganism course. In the beginning, it is difficult to select the proper reagents to use in order to rule out or rule in certain types of bacteria because many of them share the same properties. But after confirming the bacterial type, things become relatively easier. However, while performing the final tests, sometimes I might question myself about the accuracy of the tests I did in identifying the bacterial types, but since I have already done several tests to triple confirm the results in the beginning, I didn’t feel the need to do more tests to further confirm the bacterial type.

 

Another important thing this month is the suturing exam for the surgery practice course. It involves testing different suturing skills, some of them are required to be done within a certain duration of time such as 3 minutes or 1.5 minutes, and I find that the most difficult thing is not being fast, but to be accurate and have perfect tissue apposition, so that both sides of the skin will not be too tight or too loose, and what made this more difficult was that the tightness of the knot varies greatly with the type of suture used, so choosing the right kind of suture was very crucial to achieve good tissue apposition and knot tightness.

-Ernest Yu

Every medical student focused on the small animal surgery practice exam In May, which included various basic suture methods, such as Simple interrupted suture and simple continuous suture. The wound was required to be sutured within a specified time according to the interval. Therefore, most of the time before the exam was spent on practising stitching with the use of reusable stitches, sewing threads, artificial leather and timers. From the beginning, all aspects are not up to standard. Through practice, I could gradually meet the interval regulations, but the time requirements were not always met. Therefore, I could only practice again and again, hoping that practice makes perfect, which allowed me to pass the exam. 

Another thing that was very meaningful to me in May was the White coat ceremony (WCC), which meant that I could work in the hospital as an intern. However, due to the Covid-19, my family could not enter Taiwan. As the epidemic became even more severe afterwards, the WCC was forced to be cancelled and will not be re-organized. Since I was so looking forward to this very meaningful ceremony and it fell through at last, I feel like I have missed an important piece in my university life. I feel very sorry for the parents too. At last, we could only take personal photos and share them with their families.

—Yoki Chau