Me, ... at work ... in the Veterinary Teaching Hospital

Me, at work ... as a Veterinary Clinician, Planning and Development Officer

... at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital of the Faculty of Agricultural Science,Veterinary Science and Fisheries, the Agriculture and Forestry University, Rampur, Chitwan, Nepal.

This all sounds rather grand, but the buildings here are outdated and run down. The students are taught a reasonable amount of theory, but they lack practical experience. This is mainly because the facilities are inadequate and there is a dearth of equipment.

Here is the entrance to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital

My role is to improve the students' practical experience, introduce them to diagnostic equipment and increase their exposure to international veterinary practice standards.

This is called 'capacity building' in bureaucracy speak. It has to be 'sustainable' so that the product of my work is still there after I leave.

The assignment is for one year. It is funded by the Australian Government as part of their overseas aid program. The government provides funds to cover my return air fare and basic living expenses as well as providing support and insurance cover.

Here I am in front of the livestock examination area and bike shelter. I think you can see my motorcycle in the background.

The vet school is in a rural area of south Nepal. There are many local poultry farms, as well as buffalo, cattle, goats, dogs, and a few sheep and pigs.

Here I am examining the udder of a big buffalo. She doesn't look too happy about it. Perhaps my hands were cold?!

I also go out on farm calls. The vets here travel by motorcycle ... with a bag over their shoulder and a stethoscope round their neck. 

Here is a relatively large, well-managed dairy farm. The cattle are fed freshly cut green fodder when it is available, as well as cereal feed and rice straw. They are all milked twice a day by hand.

Most of the cattle are very inquisitive and friendly.

Some are quite impressive and rather intimidating. This bull passed my inspection for conformation ... but I must admit that I did not check his teeth. The were too close to his long horns for my comfort!

Lots of families have a 'house cow' or buffalo. They sell her milk to neighbours to supplement their income. Here is one house cow with a damaged pelvis caused by a difficult birth. She could not fully support her weight so the owners installed an ingenious system to help her.

The students are generally eager to learn. Here I am demonstrating how to pass a stomach tube in a young goat. It gets quite cold at night and this goat was suffering from exposure. It needed nourishment and warmed up with some dextrose solution in its belly.

This is the laboratory with the Haematology Analyser that I am training the staff and students to use ( ... that's easy) and how to interpret ( ... not so easy!).

Unfortunately, the electricity power supply is not reliable. It varies in strength and sometimes cuts out altogether. This is not good for the new equipment being introduced so it needs to be protected from power surges. Inverter systems have been installed in some of the buildings ... but, since no funds seem to be allocated for maintenance, the batteries sit in the corner and slowly corrode until they are useless.

Here I am demonstrating the new Portable Ultrasound Machine. I had a bit of homework to do myself before using the machine ... coz I am no expert in this area. It didn't help that the instruction manual was poorly translated into English from some foreign language!

This pretty 3 month old buffalo benefited from ultrasound examination since I was able to demonstrate that his bladder was intact. He had not been able to pass urine for 3 days due to a blockage in his urethra. This can cause the bladder to rupture. In which case, the patient is beyond treatment. We knew the bladder had not ruptured in this guy so he was treated surgically to relieve the problem.

The students have few opportunities to learn surgical skills. So it is great that we had a visit from a couple of vets and their team from www.theonehealthfoundation.org.uk They organised the collection of local stray dogs and supervised the students neutering these animals. 

The next piece of diagnostic equipment for me to show the students is an ElectroCardioGram (ECG) machine. I am also in the process of contacting international veterinary schools in order to develop communications that may lead to an exchange of staff and students. In addition, I am collating a list of weblinks that students can access in order to further develop their education ... especially their practical knowledge. This new developing field called eLearning.

I'll finish with this photo of a rather unusual visitor to the vet school. A rare one-horned rhinoceros came sauntering down the lane past the main building last week. He didn't stop and was maybe just checking the place out for another time. 

I haven't treated a rhino yet. So let's hope (s)he returns for a check up before I leave in August!